Hide and Seek with the Heir of Slytherin
by mystorytotell
Summary: Sequel to my story, The Muggleborn Slytherin. Skylar French is headed back to Hogwarts, this time, feeling comfortable in her place as the lone mugglebord of Slytherin House. Until, of course, the the Chamber of Secrets is opened, the Heir of Slytherin starts petrifying the castle's muggleborns and she's stuck in the middle of the nest of snakes. Rated T for mild language.
1. Let's Go for a Ride

**A/N:**

 **This story belongs to JK Rowling.**

 **I know it's posted at the beginning of almost every fic you read on here, but this time, it's actually true. Hermione isn't a slut, Harry isn't gay or evil or a twin, Ron isn't a bully, Draco isn't sweet or romantic. These are JK's characters and story.**

 **My OC, Skylar French, is literally the only thing I own. Even most of the plot is JK's; Skylar is mostly just along for the ride, though usually in a different part of the castle. Because of this, you will recognize a lot of the story, even whole conversations with hardly a single edit. I am not claiming her work as mine. I am saying that she did so** _ **freaking**_ **well that I don't want to change anything.**

 **You've been warned. I ain't posting anymore 'I'm not plagiarizing' promises for this story.**

 **Now, enjoy! And I would love a few reviews-praise or criticism, whatever you want, I'm flexible. :)**

"Ron, dear, has Harry written you back yet?" Molly asked over breakfast on morning. Ginny looked up attentively and I had to carefully school my expression so that it wouldn't give away my amusement. Ginny had developed quite a crush on The-Boy-Who-Lived. In fact, I had found a newspaper clipping about his return to the wizarding world hidden under her pillow a couple weeks back. Not that I had been snooping; Molly had asked me to brink both mine and Ginny's sheets down stairs to be washed. However, the following search of her things didn't yield any more juicy bits of evidence, unfortunately, and Ginny never knew I had found her article.

We were about two months into our summer vacation and Ron had been writing Harry at least once a week, usually more. It had been planned that Harry would come stay at the Burrow at some point, but Harry hadn't responded even once. At first, we thought Errol, the family owl, was just being his usual, unreliable, old self. But Harry had an owl too, a good one, so even if he wasn't getting Ron's letters, we all figured Harry would have written by now on his own so Ron's next conclusion was that Harry just didn't want to talk to him. After all, Harry was famous. It was only after Molly, Arthur, Percy, Charlie, Fred, George and I all talked to him that he saw sense.

Fred, George and I might actually not have been very helpful on this point because we had told him, sarcastically, but maybe with faces a mite too straight, that of course Harry would rather stay with his horrid family than with Ron and the rest of us. Neither Ron nor Molly appreciated our input.

"No," Ron said swallowing down a large bite of scrambled egg. "Hermione says she hasn't heard from him either." Molly looked at her husband, Arthur, with worry. "Something is wrong," Ron insisted. "His aunt and uncle are stopping the letters or something." Ron wasn't one of those boys who were overly emotional. For the most part, his world seemed to revolve around Quidditch—either playing it or watching the Chudley Cannons play it. At that moment though, his prows were knit with concern for his friend rather than for his favorite team's abysmal standing. When Ron worried about something other than Quidditch, you knew it was something worth worrying about.

"Perhaps we'll hear something tomorrow then," Molly sighed. I knew she was worried about Harry; I had eavesdropped on more than one conversation between her and Arthur about the whether they should go check on Harry themselves. They had even written to Dumbledore about the matter, but he had advised them that Harry was safest at the Dursley's. However, if Harry's aunt and uncle had cut him off from the wizarding world, well, I could relate. Only the previous summer, my biological family had tried to make me ignore everything magic, in the world and in myself, and when I had been unable to do so, I had been kicked out. The only concession they had made for me was to send me to the UK where I planned to attend Hogwarts, a more prestigious school than the one I had previously attended in America. As soon as I arrived in London however, I was trucked off to an orphanage. Without the extreme kindness of the Weasleys, I would still be in that place. Instead, thanks to Fred and George befriending me and telling their mother of my predicament, Molly had offered me a home with them for as long as I needed one and the entire family had accepted me as a daughter and sister.

Before all that though, when I was with my biological family, when I was unable to control my fate, I felt helpless and angry. I imagined Harry felt similar now. That's why, when Ron approached us the next evening with a proposition, I felt no guilt breaking the rules.

Arthur had come home that day with an announcement. And not the good kind. "I heard some news about Harry," he sighed as we all sat around the dinner table.

"What?" Ron, Ginny, and Molly all said simultaneously.

"Apparently, he performed magic in front of his relatives. He was sent a warning about it. If he does any more magic, he could get expelled." Ron's face turned white.

"I need your help," he told us after dinner. We had been heading out while there was still light to practice flying—I was awful and needed all the practice I could get—but at Ron's serious tone, the twins instead led us up to their room.

"So, brother dear," Fred began as he settled onto his bed. George and I both took a seat on George's bed opposite Fred's while Ron took the chair next to the desk. "How may we be of service?"

"I know there's something going on with Harry," Ron said. "He should have written me at least once by now. And he used magic! What if they're hurting him and he tried to defend himself? And next time that happens, he could be expelled and then he'd be stuck there with them forever! We've got to go rescue him, but mum and dad won't do anything." I snorted at Ron's word choice. Only Gryffindors used words like _rescue_. How noble of them.

"Calm down, Ron," I told him. "Harry's not an idiot. He knows won't do it again. And besides, if they've never hurt him enough for him to use it in the past, maybe it won't happen again. Plus, it could have been for something completely different."

"They made him sleep in a cupboard for ten _years_ ," Ron said anxiously. Fred and George looked just as surprised as me. This was new information. "They're not suddenly being _nice_. And what if you're wrong? What if they try to hurt him again? Do you want him to be stuck with those muggles forever?"

"We're in," I said even before Ron had finished talking. Fred and George nodded vehemently in agreement.

"So," Fred said, getting the planning going. He tossed me my journal and pen from his desk. The words written inside were visible only to me, but since most of what was written within were pranking plans—for operations and products—we kept it in here with the twins. If they had ideas when I wasn't around, they would write it on a slip of parchment, slip it inside the little book, and I would transcribe it later. Molly didn't realize what all was in the thing so she left it alone and our plans were safe. As usual, this plot would be recorded with the rest. "Where does Harry live?"

"4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England," Ron rattled off quickly. I suppose that's what happens when you write a couple dozen letters to the same person. I wrote it on the top of a blank page:

RESCUE MISSION TO 4 PRIVET DRIVE, LITTLE WHINGING, SURREY

"Surrey, huh?" George muttered. He rummaged around in a drawer for a moment before emerging victoriously with a map I hadn't known they had. He unfolded it and spread it across the bed. "Let's see, let's see," he murmured to himself. "There's Surrey. There's Little Whinging. That's quite a distance. Round trip would take all night." I wrote:

All night or something REALLY fast

"Well, what all could we do to get there?" I asked.

"Harry's got a broomstick," Fred reminded me. "We could all just fly."  
"No!" I protested. I was fine flying around the yard or towards town, but an all-night trip? I would plummet to my death!

"You could always stay here and run interference with mum," George suggested. I wanted to argue that I wanted to go, but I reminded myself that the important part of this trip was to get Harry here, so I grudgingly wrote:

Possible transportation

broomsticks

"What about the floo network?" Ron suggested. It was disconcerting to twirl from fireplace to fireplace, but it was also fast. I wrote:

floo netw

Before I could finish though, Fred cut in. "Muggle fireplaces aren't hooked up to the network." I hadn't realized that fireplaces had to be connected to the network like muggle telephones. I scratched that off the list.

"Do any of you know how to drive?" I asked. "We could maybe take the car. It would be slower than flying, but—"

"That's it!" Fred and George exclaimed as one, a habit of theirs that I had grown used to over the last year.

"We'll fly the car there and back!"

"That's great," I rolled my eyes. "Except that none of us know how to make the car fly and even if we did, we can't use magic over the vacation."

"Dad already did though," Ron said with a grin, liking this plan. "A few years back, right?" he asked the twins who nodded.

"Your dad did WHAT?" I exclaimed. They all shushed me urgently and we all sat there silently to see if I had alerted anyone else in the house. When no one came to check on my noise, I tried again. "Your dad enchanted a car to fly? Isn't that illegal?" There was some law somewhere about enchanting unauthorized vehicles to fly.

"He wrote that law," George grinned, "so he stuck in a little loophole."

"As long as he wasn't planning on flying it, it wasn't illegal to enchant it," Fred explained. I grinned. So that's where the twins got their rebellious streak.

"Cool. So, car then?" I wrote and circled:

CAR

"Alright, what else do we need to plan?" Over the next hour and a half, we created a timeline, a list of excuses for Molly for why we needed to go to bed just a little early, who would sneak the keys from Arthur's nightstand, where we would stop for gas before hitting the road (sky, whatever) and a bribe for Ginny to not wake her parents in the middle of the night when I went missing.

"We ride at dusk!" George said dramatically as I closed my journal. I rolled my eyes at him. Gryffindors!

"Alright, you two," Fred added, "you'd best head to bed now so that we don't all fall asleep in the car." Ron and I headed out, but it was hours until I fell asleep, too jittery with excitement.

We met the next evening as the sun slipped under the western horizon. It was still pretty light, but we needed to push the car down the driveway so that Molly and wouldn't hear the engine and catch us before we got anywhere. Arthur had been called into work, so we were safe from him. "You dealt with Ginny?" George asked me as he unlocked the driver's side door for me to steer while they pushed. It felt awkward having the steering wheel on the right of the car, but I had accepted ages ago that Brits were just weird.

"Of course," I nodded. I promised her half the candy we bought today if Molly doesn't find out we're gone." The twins and I had flown towards town this morning, stowing our broomsticks in some bushes before any muggles saw us, to buy snacks for the ride; toffees and chips (crisps, whatever) and soda (I had introduced the twins to the fizzy drink a month or two back and they loved the stuff). I dropped my backpack full of the food on the passenger's seat and took the car of park steering as they pushed the car down the dirt driveway. As long as Molly didn't look out the window, we would be fine. When we were a good distance out, I crawled into the backseat with Ron while the twins took the front. After a quick stop for gas, we drove out of sight of all muggles and Fred grinned at us all from the behind the steering wheel.

"Hold on," he warned us. He flipped a switch on the dash and we rose into the air, soaring like birds. Had I been afraid of heights, I would have vomited, but as it was, laughter bubbled from my throat. I would have thought that flying would have felt different from driving, but it didn't. If I closed my eyes, it felt like we were back on the ground, though slightly tilted as Fred gained altitude. It was exhilarating.

George manned the map while Fred drove leaving Ron and me to enjoy the view. We didn't talk much, as if the sound would alert the muggles to our presence up here in the clouds. Around two in the morning, George realized that we had gone way too far north and we had to backtrack for a bit. Finally, George called out, "We're almost there!" and Ron and I stopped our dozing to look out the widows. "Can you tell which one is his house?"

"That one," Ron pointed, catching sight of the brass '4' by the door.

"But which window is his?" I asked, realizing there was something we hadn't thought of. Fred circled the house, sucking in a breath as we rounded one side.

"I'm guessing it's that one," he said. We all looked with disgust at the basr covered window. Who puts bars on a twelve year old's second story window?

"Pull up," George told his brother. He looked through the windows and announced, "He's still asleep." I leaned around Ron to see Harry laying in his bed, apparently dreaming about something unpleasant as he muttered with his brows furrowed. He looked weird without his glasses. Ron rolled down his window and leaned out of the car to put a hand on the bars and began rattling them. Harry woke slowly before noticing his friend hanging towards the window and startling towards us. He shoved the window out of the way, looking like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Ron!" He looked at his friend in shock, not even noticing the rest of us for a minute. "Ron, how did you—what the—?" Finally, he noticed the rest of us and the car. I watched, entertained, as his eyebrows kept growing higher and higher, disappearing with his ever-present scar beneath his bangs.

"All right, Harry?" George asked seriously. The bars on the window were rather concerning.

"What's been going on?" Ron demanded his friend. "Why haven't you been answering my letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles—"

"It wasn't me—and how did he know?"

"He works for the Ministry. You _know_ we're not supposed to do spells outside of school—" Ron told his friend. I had never imagined him as the mother sort, but he suddenly sounded like Molly.

"You should talk," Harry said in a half laugh, half incredulous sigh as he looked at the car. He should have known better than to underestimate the Weasleys.

"Oh, this doesn't count," Ron waved the concern away. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's _we_ didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with—" I sighed at Ron. Harry already said he didn't do it. Did Ron have beeswax in his ears?

"I told you I didn't—" Harry sounded as exasperated as me. "But it'll take too long to explain now—look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out, because the Ministry'll think that the second spell I've done in three days, so—" I sighed at Harry's stupidity.

"Stop gibbering," Ron said, as impatient as me. "We've come to take you home with us."

"Honestly, Harry," I said, leaning forward so he could see me clearly. "Did you think we'd come all this way just to leave you here?"

"But you can't magic me out either—" Did he not realize why the twins and I were here?

"We don't need to," said Ron, nodding towards the rest of us. I waved sarcastically. "You forget who I've got with me."

Fred pulled out a rope, one of the supplies we had thought to bring, and tossed one end to Harry. "Tie that around the bars," he ordered.

"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," Harry said worriedly. Fred pumped the gas a few times. Honestly, I was wondering how the muggles had slept through the noise for this long. I mean, I was a heavy sleeper, but even I would have woken up if a car was circling the second story of my house.

"Don't worry and stand back," Fred said reassuringly before stomping on the gas. Harry hurried back a few steps until we couldn't see him in the shadows. The car kept getting louder and louder until we finally shot forward, the window bars coming with us, an almighty crunch as the bars broke free of the bricks. Ron pushed open his door to pull the bars in. When we pulled back up to the window, Harry was there, alert as he appeared to be listening to the rest of the house. Honestly, I wasn't sure how they had missed that crash, but I was certainly glad they had. We pulled up close, Ron's door still open for Harry to get in.

"Get in," Ron told Harry, who was gaping at us.

"But all my Hogwarts stuff—my wand—my broomstick—"

"Where is it?" I asked hoping it was just in his bedroom. 'Grab it and let's go!' I wanted to say.

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room—" Why couldn't the muggles just make this easy?

"No problem," George said pleasantly. "Out of the way, Harry." George pushed open his door and both Fred and George climbed out of it and in through Harry's window. "You coming, Skylar?" he called back to me.

"Heck, yes," I muttered to myself. There was no way I was staying in the car and letting them have all the fun. Aloud, though, I said, "If I fall, I'm blaming you!" Fred offered me a hand and I carefully climbed into the house.

"You got a hairpin?" George asked me as we approached Harry's locked door.

"Yup," I pulled the bobby pin out of my pocket. Lately, Ginny and Molly had both been trying to 'help' me with my outrageously curly, blond hair. Ginny's hair was wavy, but didn't have the volume mine did so she liked playing hairdresser with me as her hairdress-ee. She was actually pretty good, but the pins got uncomfortable so I rarely left them in my hair which meant that there was usually one in my pockets. George took it and leaned down to push it into the keyhole

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," Fred told Harry, "but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

"Yes," I rolled my eyes. "Aren't you so glad I taught you? I doubt this is the kind of think they teach in Muggle Studies."

"You taught them?" Why did Harry sound so surprised?

"I was locked up last summer too and got bored. Found a padlock, found a bobby pin and taught myself," I shrugged. Before Harry could respond, the lock clicked and the door swung open. George pumped his fist victoriously.

"So—we'll get your trunk," George whispered to Harry. "You grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron." Fred was already out in the hall and heading down the stairs.

"Watch for the bottom stair—it creaks," I heard Harry whisper, having to quickly pass the message to Fred with only seconds to spare.

"Thanks," he whispered, carefully jumping over it.

"You two," I rolled my eyes, "Always rushing into everything." I took my pin back from George and undid the lock on the little door myself. As it swung open, I looked inside in shock. "He slept in here?" I asked, suddenly filled with new sympathy for the kid upstairs. I heard both twins grinding their teeth next to me. "C'mon," I said before they went up to pummel the muggles upstairs. I had seen them throw fists for less.

We unloaded everything, just a trunk and a broomstick. Since the boys insisted they didn't need help carrying anything, while they tugged everything out, I went into the kitchen. I had seen those muggles at the train station and both father and son were humongous fat. That meant they had sweets. Unsurprisingly, I found an entire chocolate cake in the fridge and decided to liberate it. "Ready?" I asked the twins when I returned to the hallway where they had finally gotten the trunk through the door. They looked at me then at the cake in my hands. Fred grinned while George gave me a look that clearly said 'Are you seriously stealing their cake? That's a pretty low thing to do.'

I raised my chin and gave him a responding look to say 'Yes I am and I'll enjoy every bite. And if you're not nice, you don't get any.' George shrugged before nodding. "Ready," he whispered. Harry came into the hall just then, offering to help with the trunk and they accepted the help. Harry only gave me one strange look as I carried the cake. I heard the uncle cough a couple times and held my breath, passing Ron the cake through the window.

"Stop questioning the cake and take it!" I whispered at him, annoyed. He shrugged and took it depositing it on the seat next to him. I followed the cake back into the car and helped Ron as the twins and Harry pushed the trunk towards us into the back seat. "A bit more," I told the others through clenched teeth as we pulled. Why did we put so much stuff in these things again? They were no good if we couldn't lift them. "One more good push!" And push they did. The momentum pushed Ron into me and I almost fell onto the cake. "Careful!" The wonderful enchantments Arthur had put in this car came in handy once again as the back seat still had enough room to comfortably seat Harry, even with the trunk.

"Okay, let's go! George whispered as both he and Fred crawled back into the car and pulled their door closed. Harry mounted the window too, but was stopped by a loud screech from his still caged owl, still in the room. Before anyone could say anything, a man's voice was shouting from down the hall.

"THAT RUDDY OWL!" he screamed. _Really,_ I thought, _the owl is the only thing that woke you up tonight?_ They would lose everything if their house was ever burglarized.

"I've forgotten Hedwig!" Harry said, dashing for the bird's cage and passing it to Ron. There was a banging on the door and Harry had mounted the window seal again to follow the bird, but the fat man from the station suddenly barged into the room, the door opening with a crash and his robe hanging open. Harry and his uncle stared at each other, terror in Harry's eyes as the man sized up everything that was happening. The big man moved first, charging Harry and grabbing his leg as the rest of us grabbed Harry's arms, pulling so hard it was a wonder they weren't pulled from their sockets.

"Petunia!" Harry's uncle yelled towards the hanging door. "He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

"Doesn't really look like you want him, anyways," I muttered, mostly to myself. We all tugged hard before his wife could come assist him or the muggle neighbors could wake up and see the car hanging in midair and suddenly, Harry was in the car with us, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Put your foot down, Fred!" Ron yelled and we quickly accelerated up into the air, high above the house, leaving the uncle half hanging out the window, his wife and son joining him only a moment later. Harry was grinning ear to ear as we zoomed away.

With a hint of mischief in his eyes, he leaned his head out of the car to yell, "See you next summer!" and we all broke into laughter. We had done it! I suddenly understood why Gryffindors were all about quests and whatnot—the adrenaline was great. "Let Hedwig out. She can fly behind us," Harry told Ron as he slumped back into his seat. "She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages. Ron pulled at the lock for only a moment before I took it from him and picked the lock myself. Hedwig practically threw herself out of the cage as soon as the lock clicked. She flapped out the window and I swear her hoot was as victorious as Harry's last taunt at the Dursleys had been.

"So—what's the story, Harry?" Ron sounded impatient. "What's been happening?" Harry spun one of the oddest tales I had ever heard, about a house elf named Dobby showing up in his room and warning him not to return to Hogwarts. I felt a shiver go up my back when Harry told us about the warning little Dobby had given him: 'There is a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year!', though I did enjoy the mental image of the little elf dropping the pudding on Vernon's boss's wife. We sat silently when he finished. Had it been anyone else, I would have thought they were trying to pull one over on me, but Harry never lied. Fred was the first to speak.

"Very fishy," he said.

"Definitely dodgy," George added.

"Weird," was my only word.

"So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?" George asked.

"I don't think he could," Harry said shaking his head. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall." Poor little guy. I had seen elves do similar things when my fellow Slytherins berated their elves, but this guy had it worse than most. His owners must be truly sadistic to allow it.

I noticed Fred and George doing their nonverbal communication twin thing the same moment Harry did. "What?" he demanded. "You think he was lying to me?"

"Well, put it this way," Fred said. "House elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"

 _The whole of Slytherin house?_ I thought to myself. Even I was still a bit sore about losing out the House Cup to Gryffindor the previous year, despite the heroic things Harry, Ron and Hermione had done. Ron and Harry narrowed down the field for me though.

"Yes," they said as one. "Draco Malfoy," Harry added by way of explanation. "He hates me." He did. I had heard the blond kid complain about Potter and Dumbledore and everyone else he didn't like for hours in the common room, but most of his complaints were about Harry.

"Draco Malfoy?" George turned around to look at Harry. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"Must be," Harry shrugged. "It's not a very common name, is it?"

"Yeah," I spoke up. "The little brat is his son. He came to visit Draco in the dungeons one time." I shivered lightly. The guy had been creepy.

"I've heard Dad talking about him," George said. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."

"Doesn't surprise me," I said. "Everyone was very careful when he came. Terence shoved me down towards my dormitory so that Lucius wouldn't see me."

"Did he see you?" George asked with worry.

"No, but he knew I was there. I heard him talking, asking if the 'filthy girl' was there." All four of the boys scowled.

"You're not filthy," Fred growled from the driver's seat.

"I know," I reached forward to pat him on the shoulder. "Now what else do we know about the Malfoys?" I asked to turn the subject. I picked up the cake, grumbling to myself when I realized I didn't have a fork. There was no way to eat it without making a huge mess so reluctantly, I rolled down the window and, checking to make sure there was no civilization beneath us, dumped the cake, plate and all, out the window. Ron gave me a weird look as I rolled my window back up, but I ignored him and he turned forward when Fred started talking.

"When You-Know-Who disappeared," Fred was halfway turned around to look Harry while he spoke. I worried for a moment before deciding that as long as we didn't take a sudden nosedive, we were okay. "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung—Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle." Again, this didn't surprise me one bit.

"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house elf…" Harry said, trailing off.

"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," Fred said.

"Yeah," George agreed. "Mum's always wishing we had a house elf to do the ironing, but all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house…."

"You do realize that ancient, rich, families with huge homes describes half the Slytherin house?" I told the boys. And most of the purebloods, even some of the halfbloods, were rumored to have family ties to Death Eaters. We all sat quietly for several minutes. Harry and Ron appeared to be thinking very hard so I let them.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," Ron said finally. "I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first—"

"Who's Errol?" Harry interrupted.

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he's collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes—"

" _Who?_ "

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," Fred answered before Ron could.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me. Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," George frowned. "And he _has_ been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room….I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge….You're driving too far to the west, Fred."

"Charlie knew what was up with him," I said. "But he wouldn't tell me what. Ron? What happened to the snacks?"

"We finished off all the crisps and soda so I put the toffee in the glove box to make room for everything else." I sighed, but figured I would get the toffees later.

"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" Harry asked suspiciously. He sounded like he already knew the answer.

"Er, no," Ron said awkwardly. "He had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it." And if we didn't escape her watch, we were dead.

"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?" Harry asked.

"He works in the most boring department. The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office." Ron seemed thoroughly unsatisfied with his father's profession despite the fact that Arthur loved it.

"The _what?_ "

"It's all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle-made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. The Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friends tea in it. It was a nightmare—Dad was working overtime for weeks."

"What happened?"

"The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place and one man ended up in the hospital with the sugar tongs clamped to his nose." I remembered this story. The man had been her daughter's boyfriend—how awkward. I grinned with that mental image in my head. "Dad was going frantic—it's only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office—and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up—"

"But your dad—this car—" was in direct violation of the law? Almost, but Arthur was too smart for that. Fred laughed.

"Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles," he explained.

"You should have heard him the first week I moved in," I told Harry and all the Weasley boys laughed. Arthur had practically followed me around the house that whole week asking me about whatever happened to pop into his head.

"See, our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again," Fred went on. "If he raided _our_ house, he'd probably have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."

"That's the main road," George pointed ahead of us. "We'll be there in ten minutes….Just as well, it's getting light…." It was. The sun was starting to rise and the car would be very visible if any muggles happened to look our way. If only we hadn't gotten lost on the way there. Fred lowered the car slowly. "We're a little way outside the village, Ottery St. Catchpole." We had flown around the village so that no morning-bird muggle saw our silhouette against the lightening sky. Lower and lower until we bumped down onto the ground.

"Touchdown!" Fred cheered.

"Have you ever landed this thing?" I asked him, just a little rattled.

"Nope. Pretty good for a first time," he said, adding a wink so that I couldn't tell if he was teasing or not. We were next to the garage in the yard.

"It's not much," Ron said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

"It's _wonderful,_ " Harry whispered. I grinned. Of course he liked the place. It was the best place in the world. We all got out, unloading Harry's things and started toward the house. Fred whispered his plan to us; we hadn't planned this part because we weren't actually sure if we could get this far.

"Now we'll all go upstairs really quietly and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast." Mmmm, _breakfast_ , my stomach sighed happily. "Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one need ever know we flew the car."

I could see a flaw in this plan and I didn't think that was how Molly would react, but before I could voice the opinion, Ron was saying, "Right, come on Harry. I sleep at the—at the top—" We all turned to follow his gaze which was pointed at the house.

Oh. Well I hadn't seen _that_ flaw.


	2. Consequences of Flying at Night

"Ah," Fred mumbled.

"Oh, dear," George agreed. Words a bit stronger were running through my head, but I didn't utter them. Molly was marching towards us looking more furious than I had ever seen her. Even more furious than when George had laid the trap that left Ginny dangling from the ceiling or when we had snuck into Percy's room and painted everything purple. She was wearing her flowery kitchen apron, which would have looked comical, if her wand wasn't sticking out of the pocket like a sword ready for swinging.

" _So_ ," she hissed. All five of us gulped.

"Morning, Mum," George said trying to sound bright.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" she demanded. Her voice was soft, but I would have preferred if she screamed.

Fred tried to explain, "Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to—" Finally, she did scream and I wanted her to go back to whispering immediately. Or maybe she could just use a regular voice. That would be even better. We were all flinching as she yelled at us.

 _"Beds empty! No note! Car gone—could have crashed—out of my mind with worry—did you care?—never, as long as I've lived—you wait until you father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy—"_

"Perfect Percy," Fred muttered bitterly and I silently agreed with him.

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" she screamed. I glanced to my right and saw Harry looking completely terrified. I didn't blame him. "You could have _died_ ," Molly continued. "You could have been _seen_." I felt like she had those out of order, but I wasn't going to correct her. "You could have lost your father his _job_." Okay, yes, I felt rather guilty on that count. Her voice was hoarse by the time she finished and she turned on Harry who, still looking terrified, backed up a few steps. _Stupid,_ I thought. _She's not mad at you._ "I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear. Come in and have some breakfast." She marched off back towards the house and Harry swung his gaze round to Ron who nodded at him that the worst of the storm was over. Cautiously, Harry followed Molly into the house and we all followed him.

"Could have been worse," Fred muttered to the rest of us. That was true; she hadn't actually laid down any punishment…yet. Perhaps delivering Harry to her safe was the key to getting out of trouble. I would file that away for later. When we entered, Harry was seated carefully on the edge of one of the chairs at the table, as if ready to run away should the need arise. I snickered under my breath at the sight and we all joined him at the table despite the fact that breakfast wasn't quite ready yet. Molly was still in the kitchen cooking, a bit louder than usual. She kept giving us grumpy looks and muttering to herself what sounded like a continuation of our scolding. I carefully looked out the window to avoid eye contact with the cranky witch.

"I don't blame _you_ , dear," she told Harry as she began serving him. She gave him about eight sausages and he looked at his plate with the widest eyes I had ever seen. It was a double serving sure, but he was rather thin and I had no doubt Molly was going to try to fatten him up before school began. It was her way. "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really, flying an illegal car halfway across the country—anyone could have seen you!"

"It was _cloudy_ , Mum!" Fred declared. Well, it was most of the flight. There had been a few clear spots, but I didn't point that out.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Molly snapped at him.

"They were starving him, Mum!" George said.

"And you!" she said, less harshly than before. In Molly Weasley's book, starving a person was about the worst you could do to them. She quickly cut and buttered two pieces of bread and put them on Harry's plate. Ginny ran in then, still in her nightdress, saw Harry, squealed, and left. I laughed, louder than I should have, but shook my head when the twins looked from where their sister had been to me.

"Ginny," I heard Ron whisper to his friend. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer." That was an understatement, but I stayed quiet. Fred didn't though.

"Yeah, she'll be wanting you autograph, Harry," Fred grinned over at a bewildered Harry. I kicked him under the table and he kicked me back until he caught Molly's look. He quickly dug into his breakfast.

" _Blimey_ , I'm tired," Fred yawned when he had finished his food. I was still finishing, the boys always ate like they were facing a deadline, but I shot him a look. He wasn't going to get off that easily. "I think I'll go to bed and—"

Molly's sharp glare returned in full force. "You will not! It's your own fault you've been up all night." _Told ya,_ I thought. "You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again.

"Oh, Mum—" _Ron, you're not helping._ I hated de-gnoming. Why couldn't they just do a spell to keep the pests out for good? At the very least, there had to be a magical exterminator somewhere.

"And you too," she glared at Ron, then Fred and by the way her gaze traveled over to George and me, I knew we were included in this punishment too. "You can go to bed, dear," she said kindly to Harry. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car—"

Harry, who had gotten the most sleep out of any of us, looked too excited to go to bed. "I'll help Ron," he said quickly. "I've never seen a de-gnoming—" _No, silly boy. Run! Run while you can!_

"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work." _The dullest._ "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject." She pulled _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ off the mantle and I sighed. Sure, the book was informative, but you had to wonder about a guy who put his picture big and loud on the front of a book about vermin. Molly had a huge crush on the too-perfect-to-be-real blond though.

"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden," George groaned. Molly wasn't paying attention. She had caught Harry looking at the winking, blond, blue-eyed man on the cover of the book.

"Oh, he is marvelous," she said a bit dreamily. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book…." You'd think it was an exciting novel the way she talked about it.

"Mum _fancies_ him," Fred whispered loudly, effectively catching her attention again.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred," Molly said as she blushed. She pushed the book back into its place on the mantle and turned us with her hands on her hips. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it." Groaning and grumbling along with the rest of the delinquent Weasleys, I stumbled out the back door and into the yard. Harry was following us with far too much energy and I wanted to pinch him. The garden was huge which meant more places for the stupid little potato-people to hide. Harry looked around curiously.

"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry told Ron as we walked and I laughed. Back when I was eight, I had known a lady that had fifteen of those little things all over her front yard. At least when you threw those things, they broke. These little idiots just wandered back.

"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," Ron grumbled. He was digging around a bush where a lot of gnomes like to hide. "Little fat Santa Clauses with fishing rods…."

"These aren't so cute and cuddly," I informed Harry as Ron, apparently having found some, fought with the bush. Finally, he came up holding one of the little buggers.

" _This_ is a gnome," he informed his friend. I didn't go digging around for the gnomes like Fred, George and Ron did. As soon as the others knew there was a round-up going on, they would come to me on their own. They were exceedingly dim-witted.

"Gerroff me! Gerroff me!" the gnome that Ron was holding yelled. Ron ignored his high pitched words and kept teaching Harry.

"This is what you have to do," he said as he demonstrated the wide swing needed to disorient the gnomes. Noticing that Harry looked worried for the little bugger, he said kindly, "It doesn't _hurt_ them." _Mores the pity_. "You've just got to make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnomeholes." I had always wondered why we didn't just fill in the gnomeholes when they were empty, but Fred and George said that they always just rebuilt them in the exact same places so it was no use. Ron let the gnome go and he flew twenty feet, landing in the next field over.

"Pitiful," Fred declared. "I bet I can get mine beyond that stump." The experienced boys all quickly made the chore into a competition, but I was just happy to get mine over the hedge; I still hadn't gotten the hang of throwing them far. Harry, on his very first throw, beat them all as his gnome flew past the hedge, past the stump and into a tree, tumbling down the branches until he hit the ground. Harry, who had originally been worried about hurting them didn't look very remorseful. He was nursing a bleeding finger and I laughed.

"He bite you?" I asked. "Yeah, they like to do that."

"Wow, Harry—that must have been fifty feet!" Of course, that just made the competition fiercer and soon there were ten or more gnomes flying through to air at a time. I saw a couple high five in the air as they passed one another. As more and more and more realized what was going on, they came out to watch. Grinning, I walked up to the groups of spectators, catching them easily and sending them on their own ride.

"See, they're not too bright," George explained the sudden surplus to Harry. "The moment they now the de-gnoming's going on, they storm up to have a look. You'd think they'd have learned by now just to stay put." He was showing of by grabbing a half dozen at once, but I kept to throwing one or two at a time. Finally, they were all gone, disappearing into the hedges and fields.

"They'll be back," Ron said to Harry who gave him a confused look. "They love it here. Dad's too soft with them; he thinks they're funny."

"Hilarious," I growled as rubbed my sore ankle. I had dropped one so he and his friends had attacked me. Their fists were ineffective so one got smart and bit me a couple times before I could kick him. The front door slammed and the Weasleys grinned.

"He's back! Dad's home!" George said and we all ran into the house.

Arthur looked exhausted as he slouched in a chair at the table. He was grumbling about the night to Molly who ````sympathetically dished him up some breakfast. "Nine raids! Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned…." I shouldn't have felt so angry, but I got mad when people tried to mess with my family. I wanted to go hex this Mundungus myself.

"Find anything, Dad?" Fred asked eagerly while Arthur sipped at his tea.

"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," he yawned. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness." He yawned again.

"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" George asked. It did sound rather ridiculous.

"Just Muggle-baiting. Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it…. Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because to Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking—they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face."

"I wonder why," I said dully. "Maybe 'cause wizards have been carefully making sure muggles know _nothing_ about magic and Obliviating them whenever they do happen to see something cool." Arthur chuckled.

"Perhaps so," he said with a nod at me. "But the things our lot have taken to enchanting," he continued, "you wouldn't believe—"

"LIKE CARS FOR INSTANCE?" Molly suddenly didn't seem so sympathetic. She came in holding a fire poker and I ducked behind the twins. Not that she would use it, but still…she was very frightening when she wanted to be. Arthur, who had been hiding the cars full capabilities from his wife, looked very guilty.

"C-cars, Molly, dear?" he stuttered. _Run, Arthur, run!_

"Yes, Arthur, cars," she growled. Her eyes were dangerous and all five of us kids were inching backwards despite the fact that her anger was not currently pointed at us. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while _really_ he was enchanting it to make it _fly_." Arthur gulped.

"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that," _Oh, Arthur do NOT go technical here!_ I sighed in relief when he continued. "Even if—er—he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth….There's a loophole in the law you'll find….As long as he wasn't _intending_ to fly the car, the fact that the car _could_ fly wouldn't—" _You should have stopped while you were ahead._

"Arthur Weasley!" Dang, full name meant business. We shuffled back a few more steps as we watched Molly's anger be directed at someone else. "You made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law! Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed!" _Good job, Arthur_ , I thought. I would have grinned if Molly wasn't so scary. "And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!" Yes, if Arthur _really_ didn't want the car to fly, he wouldn't have told the boys about its abilities.

"Harry? Harry who?" Arthur hadn't noticed the new addition yet, though how he missed the black-haired boy against all the redheads, I wasn't sure. I supposed that Molly's anger was rather distracting though. He finally looked up at our little group and saw Harry whose lightning scar was prominently displayed on his forehead. He jumped in surprise. "Good lord, is it Harry Potter?" he asked needlessly. "Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about—"

Molly interrupted her husband's celebrity sighting. " _Your children flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!"_ she yelled. "What have you got to say about that, eh?" His response was not what she was looking for.

"Did you really? Did it go alright?" he asked eagerly, at that moment, more of a scientist than the disciplinary father Molly was looking for. This time, I really did grin. Then of course, he caught sight of the ready-to-explode Molly. "I—I mean that—that was very wrong—very wrong indeed." It was a bit obvious that his heart wasn't in the scolding.

"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered as Molly got ready to go off on her husband. We all scurried away. As we headed the stairs, Ron led Harry up to the top, offering to show Harry his room. I was going to follow the twins to their room, but as I passed our bedroom, Ginny's arm flashed out and pulled me in. She was shockingly strong for such a little girl.

"Harry Potter is here!" she squealed into my ear.

"Ow!" I complained. "Geeze! Yes, Gin, Harry is here. Calm down and breath," I added when she began hyperventilating. I put my hands on her shoulder and on sat her down on her ben. "Ginny, you're going to make yourself pass out if you don't stop," I told her sternly. "Come on now. In and out." It took several minutes until her breathing leveled out again and I was growing impatient. "C'mon, Ginny, he's just a boy!" That sparked her attention.

"Skylar, he's not 'just a boy! He's _THE_ boy." _Oh, my bad._ "He's saved the world from You-Know-Who twice! And he's nice and good and brave and he's good at Quidditch and he's smart and…." The girl had a million and one adjectives for Harry, which was impressive seeing as she had never said a single word to him. I was growing impatient as she talked about Superboy and suddenly regretted aiding his rescue. "Skylar!" Ginny exclaimed. Her dreamy tone had turned panicked and I sat up again to pay attention. "Skylar, he saw me in my nightdress! What do I do?" I groaned and fell back on her mattress.

"Nothing, Ginny," I sighed. "You don't do anything. Besides, he'll be staying with us for the rest of the summer so he'll probably see you in your nightdress again." All the kids generally came down for breakfast in our nightclothes and I certainly wasn't going to change that habit just because there was yet _another_ male in the house.

Ginny didn't agree though. From that morning on, she refused to leave our room unless she was robed and coiffed. Even using the toilet in the middle of the night meant she had to throw roves on over her nightgown.

Fred, George, Ron and Harry spent most of their time playing Quidditch in the backyard. I, of course, was not talented enough to be competition for them and since the teams were already even, they made me referee and score keeper. Ginny sometimes joined me on the shaded grass to watch them play, but more often, she could be seen through one of the windows on that side of the house, her nose pressed to the glass. Personally, I thought she was being ridiculous and her brothers constantly teased her, but she refused to listen to any of us. Harry, for his part, was very gracious about the whole thing. Ginny was uncommonly klutzy around him, but he never said a thing about it to her and I never heard him say anything rude about the girl behind her back. My respect for him skyrocketed and I finally forgave him for snagging all those points at the End-of-the-Year Feast with his heroic actions.

The twins and I had started a new project a few weeks into vacation that we were having some troubles with. On a trip into the village, I had found Pop Rocks, an American muggle candy and a favorite from when I was little and had bought ten of the little boxes despite their being a tad overpriced. The twins had loved the novelty of the stuff, but, as teenage boys would, they wanted a bigger bang. So, after a lot of research, we began working on our own exploding candy. We ran into difficulties quickly. It wasn't hard to make the candy go BOOM, but it was hard to make it go BOOM without singeing tongues and knocking out teeth. It was also difficult to find the right kind of information in this house when Molly, Arthur and Percy refused to help us.

See, the twins planned to open a joke shop when they graduated from Hogwarts, bigger and badder than Zonko's even. They had a whole list of ideas for original products, designs for the storefront and store layout, even their ideal space on Diagon Alley all picked out. However, Molly was very much against this idea. She knew the twins were brilliant and she wanted them to do something more "constructive" with talents, "maybe even the Ministry!" Because of her high aspirations for them, she wouldn't help us with any of our projects and knew our "hypothetical" questions weren't too hypothetical; a mother's intuition I guessed. Arthur was a bit more reasonable on the whole career thing, but Molly had forbade him from helping us. He could sometimes help us with our "hypothetical" questions, but even he was liable to raise his eyebrows if we asked how to make something explode less painfully. Percy just refused to help us on principle, the git. We hoped to find some helpful books when we returned to Hogwarts and it was possible that the owners of Honeydukes would be able to help us—they had a product called "Exploding Bonbons"—but for a while, we felt like we had hit a rut. However, about a week after the Flying Car incident, we hit a break.

As we sat around the breakfast table, a tawny owl flew in and dropped a large packet of letters in front of Arthur. "What is it, Arthur?" Molly asked from where she was still cooking in the kitchen.

"Letters from Hogwarts," he replied, looking through the stack. "Ah, looks like we've got Harry's too." Arthur passed the twins, me and Ginny our lists and just a moment later, Ron and Harry could be heard thumping down the stairs. I ripped open my letter and started looking through my book list as Arthur handed the two boys their letters.

THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE

 _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3_ by Miranda Goshawk

 _Break with a Banshee_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Gadding with Ghouls_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Holidays with Hags_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Travels with Trolls_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Voyages with Vampires_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Wanderings with Werewolves_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Year with the Yeti_ by Gilderoy Lockhart

 _Intermediate Transfiguration_ by Emeric Switch

 _A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration_ by Emeric Switch

"Ugh," I groaned to myself. The first book was obviously for Charms, the same series of books Flickwit always used and the last two books were assigned by Professor McGonagall who I would be serving as a Teacher's Aid for in the upcoming year. However, I imagined the weight of all those books in the middle, all just for one class. I thought to myself that we had better not be expected to take all of them to class or I would seriously consider throwing them hard at the teacher who had assigned them.

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" Fred said as he leaned over to look at Harry's list. _Not all of them_ , I added to myself, trying to find a silver lining. _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ wasn't on there at least. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan—bet it's a witch," he added before catching his mother's look and my kick.

"That lot won't come cheap. Lockhart's books are really expensive." George remarked looking at his parents with worry. I wasn't worried for myself—the school still provided for my books and supplies—but the Weasleys still had to buy supplies for five kids. That was five whole sets of Gilderoy Lockhart's bigger books in addition to all Ginny's beginning things and all the robes Molly had already pointed out the boys were all outgrowing. I wished the school could help with their costs too, but I knew Molly and Arthur were too proud to ask.

"Well, we'll manage," Molly sighed. She looked round the table as if counting her children. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand." Ginny sighed from next to me—as the baby of the batch, almost all her possessions were handy-me-downs and/or bought from secondhand shops. Even her clothes were mostly handy-me-downs; wizard clothing wasn't very gender specific. She perked up a bit though when Harry spoke to her.

"Oh, are you stating at Hogwarts this year?" he asked kindly. She nodded in a quick, spastic way, blushing furiously and knocked into the butter with her elbow. I bit on my lips and quickly looked to the stairs from which Percy had finally descended.

"Morning, all," he said pompously. He was already fully dressed and had his prefect badge pinned on his chest, which, if I wasn't mistaken, was stuck out a bit, just like every other day. The twins and I had tried to remind him that he was a _school_ prefect, not a _home_ prefect and school didn't start for an entire month, but he had decided not to take our advice and, therefore, continued to look like an idiot despite his intellect. "Lovely day," he added and I rolled my eyes.

He sat down before popping right back up and holding up the dilapidated owl that is Errol. He must have landed quite early that morning because even Molly seemed surprised to see him. "Errol!" Ron exclaimed and took the owl from a slightly nauseous looking Percy (then again, he often looks that way). " _Finally_ —he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys." Ron took him to the owl stand by the back door, but the poor guy refused to stand so he was left on the draining board instead until he could work up his strength. As Ron walked back to the table, Molly took the bird some water which he sucked at gratefully. Ron opened his letter and read it aloud:

 _"'Dear Ron, and Harry if you're there,_

 _"'I hope everything went all right and that Harry is okay and that you didn't do anything illegal to get him out, Ron, because that would get Harry into trouble, too. I've been really worried and if Harry is all right, will you please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl, because I think another delivery might finish your one off_.

 _"'I'm very busy with schoolwork, of course'"_ Ron interrupted his reading to commentate. "How can she be? We're on vacation!"

"There's homework, Ron," I reminded him. "I'm guessing you haven't started yours." I hadn't either for that matter, but I figured I would get on that soon. Ron ignored me and quickly restarted reading before Molly could get too far into her nagging.

 _"'and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet in Diagon Alley?_

 _"'Let me know what's happening as soon as you can. Love from Hermione.'"_

"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all your things then, too," Molly said, agreeing before Ron had to ask. The twins and I looked at each other, all thinking that if we could get away from Molly for a bit, we could do some research of our candy. "What're you all up to today?" The boys, minus Percy of course, were going to play Quidditch again, but for once, I decided to forgo being their score keeper. Instead, as the boys trooped out the back door and Ginny, trying to be sneaky, followed them a few minutes later, I sat myself on a kitchen stool and asked Molly what she was doing for the day.

"Oh, just some mending. If we have to buy all those Lockhart books, well…it's never a bad idea to stretch an item's use." I nodded. I felt irrational dislike for the unknown DADA teacher. Couldn't she have planned the booklist with a parent's budget at least on the edge of her mind? She was probably rich without a care in the world.

"I'll help," I offered. "I know how to sew." Then again, if she was going to be using magic, I would be useless.

"Oh, you don't have to, dear. I sew the muggle way; it's a bit time consuming." I grinned.

"I don't mind. I like to sew." It wasn't a lie. My step-mother had begun to teach me when I was eight and I had liked learning the skill and concentration needed to make the lines and stitches straight and concise. Molly smiled.

"Then if you don't mind, I would love the help." She sent me up to get all of our school robes while she went to find her sewing basket. I brought down the heaps of black robes and dropped them in the middle of the living room couch that Molly was sitting on one end of. We worked together quietly and comfortably for several hours, only taking a break when our Quidditch players came in and said they wanted lunch. Molly would occasionally give me some sort of instruction, "The twins robes can be passed on to Ron this year so hem them up about two inches," or "make sure you don't miss the holes in the armpits—there are always a few," or "see if you can let the hemming out on Percy's robes a couple inches and we'll give them to the twins." We hemmed the sleeves and the bottom of each set of robes, patched worn out holes and tears, and reattached lost buttons.

As I worked, I noticed that the tags on the robes rarely had just one name on them. There was usually a short list of scratched out names of the owners past. Both Bill and Charlie's names made appearances on Percy's robes and Percy's name was on two of Fred's sets of robes and one of George's while Charlies name was on two sets of George's robes and one of Fred's. The twins seemed to have a bad habit of being rather hard on their robes because only two of their robes made it to Ron who's last set of robes read 'Percy' on the tag. I wondered how they would get divided up this year.

As we finished the necessary repairs and alterations for each set of robes, we divided them up by current owner, making a pile for each person. My pile was noticeably small. "Skylar, dear," Molly said with worry, "where are the rest of your robes? There is only one here and the rules state you must have three sets." _Oh, yeah_.

Before the Weasleys had taken me in, I had lived at an orphanage in the village where two other Hogwarts students lived, the Clifford siblings, both Ravenclaw. We had never gotten along—they were a bit too snobby for me and I was a bit too sarcastic for them—so we usually all just ignored each other. However, when word that the Weasleys were giving me a home spread around the school, the Cliffords had been upset with me. They said I was a liar (true), arrogant (true), a brat (true) and that I didn't deserve a family (hopefully not true). As a final insult, they had called me a _Yankee Mudblood_.

Both parts of that insult were technically true; I was American, and proud of that fact, and I was a muggleborn, who honestly didn't mind the word 'mudblood'. However, the Cliffords spread the term across the school and soon most everyone, especially in the Slytherin and Ravenclaw houses, was using it. I, being proud of my place as the school's only American and Slytherin's only muggleborn, had felt I had to stand and do something. So I had disfigured two sets of my school robes. I had cut them down the middle (re-hemming the edges magically so it looked well done) and continued to wear them over my muggle clothes. I had lost almost one hundred house points and gotten ten detentions over the following two weeks, but when the staff realized that I wasn't stopping, they gave up on me.

I was surprised Molly didn't remember. Snape had informed me that my guardians would be written and informed of the situation, McGonagall had told the twins the same thing when they were getting detentions for fighting on my behalf, and the twins and I had written Molly ourselves to explain the situation. I suddenly felt afraid to remind her without the twins by my side. Molly was a pureblood and while she might be a nice one, she also was exasperated, sometimes even thoroughly annoyed by her husband's muggle obsession. How would she feel about my stubbornness in rule breaking? "Well," I said slowly, "do you remember all the trouble the twins and I got in back in April? For me, um, d-disfiguring my robes?" Her eyes lit with understanding.

"Oh, yes. Why didn't you bring them down so we could fix them too?" Before I could say that I didn't want them fixed, I wanted to keep making my statement, she continued. "We can put buttons on so that if it's chilly or you need to look more professional at a moment's notice, you can." I stared at Molly with slack-jawed shock. She was going along with this. She was offering to _help_ me. "Go on, she nudged, go get your robes and we'll see what we can do." I nodded and gave her a huge hug before running up the stairs, saying a silent prayer of intense gratitude for the woman He had sent me to.


	3. A Trip Through the Alley

On the designated Wednesday, I was rudely awoken by the youngest of the Weasley brood. She had kept me awake for hours the previous night with question after question after bloody question about Hogwarts and classes and teachers and secret passages and the grounds and ghosts. She fell asleep mid-question while asking, again, if it was true that Gryffindor was the third tallest tower in the whole castle. And then she woke me up at eight in the morning, practically squealing, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, Skylar! It's today!" It was only when she claimed that Molly had sent her to wake me that I restrained myself from throwing a pillow at her.

I suppose I couldn't really blame her for her excitement. She had gone along on every other school shopping trip, tailing her brothers, watching them try out their wands and get measured for their robes and now, _it was her turn._ She was getting her very own wand and school robes; she was practically vibrating with excitement. I dressed and shuffled down to the breakfast table to find that I was the last one up. Not that any of the rest were actually alert—George looked like he was about to fall asleep in his chair. We each had a few bacon sandwiches (more bacon than sandwich in some cases) and finally, warily approached the fireplace. We would be floo traveling to Diagon Alley. It was one of my least favorite forms of travel because it left you dirty and dizzy. However, it was fast. The first time I used it though, I almost barfed. Broomsticks, fireplaces; wizards traveled weird.

Molly, conducting as usual, took the little floo powder pot off the mantle and sighed as she assessed the powder inside. "We're running low, Arthur. We'll have to buy some more today." Yet another cost on this already expensive day. She brightened immediately though and turned to Harry. "Ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!" Harry looked absolutely bewildered when Molly passed him the pot.

"W-what am I supposed to do?" Ron groaned.

"He's never traveled by Floo powder," he said to his mother before turning to his friend. "Sorry, Harry, I forgot."

"Never?" Molly sounded shocked, but then again, she was a pureblood. "But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?" The same way muggles got there, I imagined, but I was too tired to answer. Besides, the question wasn't directed towards me. Instead, I slumped against Fred's shoulder and wished I could go back to bed. But when there's seven kids to shop for, you had to get an early start.

"I went on the Underground—" he started before Arthur cut him off with his usual excitement about all things muggle.

"Really? Were there _escapators?_ " he asked

" _Escalators,_ Arthur," I corrected wearily.

"Yes, yes, _espalators!_ " I sighed, but didn't try to correct him again. "How exactly—"

"Not _now_ , Arthur," Molly interrupted her husband. "Floo powder's a lot quicker dear, but goodness me, if you've never used it before—" I wondered if she was really considering _driving_ to London, but Fred stopped her before that could happen.

"He'll be all right, Mum," he said quickly. "Harry, watch us first." He stepped forward quickly before his mother could object, took a bit of the glittery, green powder and tossed it into the fire that was lit despite the warm weather. The flames turned the same bright shade as the powder and leapt until they were taller than Fred was. He stepped into the flames (Harry flinched) and yelled, "Diagon Alley!" Without delay, he vanished. If you watched carefully through the smoke, you could see his form twirl into nonexistence. Molly nodded as if this was the usual, which for her, it was, and offered the pot to George as he stepped up.

"You must speak clearly, dear," she informed Harry as George stepped into the fire. "And be sure to get out at the right grate…." George vanished.

"The right what?" Harry asked. He was staring at the spot where George's head had been.

"Don't worry, Harry," I told him as I took my turn. "It's not as hard as she's making it sound." I took some of the thin powder that invaded every crease and line in my hands and felt far too slippery. I wrinkled my nose at the sooty feel.

"Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know," she called after me as I threw my powder into the fire and stepped in. "But as long as you've spoken clearly—" Arthur cut his wife off, but I couldn't tell what he was saying because I yelled my own call of "Diagon Alley," and spun away from the inviting Weasley kitchen.

The ride was loud. There was the sound of the air around you as you spun as well as the sounds from the grates as you passed—laughter, yelling, the radio, a fist fight between two young siblings (one of whom had decapitated the other's teddy), and a lot of stuff I couldn't make out as I spun by. The ride was also bumpy, especially if you didn't hold very, very still, something that was difficult when you twirled like a toy top. And then there was nausea. However, people didn't appreciate it when vomit was projected out their fireplaces, so it was best to keep that stuff in. Finally, I began to slow and spun almost to a stop in the dining room of the familiar Leaky Cauldron. I wobbled out of the grate, tripping right into Tom the barman, who was kindly there to assist us. "Miss French," he greeted and bowed. He helpfully handed me a seltzer water, nasty stuff, but affective, and I dropped myself into the chair next to the one George reclined in. He was perfectly at ease, the nutter.

"Alright there?" he mocked. I spit seltzer water at him, missing completely. The twins were still dirty with ash, having not bothered to brush themselves off much except for their faces. I, however, at least tried to brush myself off. Wasn't especially successful though. I was though, pleasantly relieved to find my money back still on my hip, full of sickles and a few galleons.

On our last trip to Diagon Alley, back near the beginning of the holidays, Arthur and Bill had taken me to Gringotts to exchange my American muggle money for wizarding money. The previous summer, when my parents had kicked me out of their home, seemingly without much regret, I had "borrowed" a credit card and withdrawn five hundred dollars from their account. Looking back, it was not the appropriate thing to do, but I also hadn't considered sending them the money back for more than a few seconds. The goblins made a fuss about the American cash, but Bill had helpfully bullied them into being accommodating. I had exchanged three-hundred and fifty of my dollars for seventy four galleons, eighteen sickles and twenty knuts. One hundred dollars for sixty two pounds and kept the last fifty dollars American. I figured there was always the possibility that it could be useful. Molly had insisted that I save most of my money, but she agreed that I could spend a few galleons.

The fire turned green and a moment later, Arthur stepped out of the fireplace, not needing Tom's assistance. "Did you make it alright, Skylar?" he asked me with concern. He knew I hated traveling by fireplace, but didn't understand how it was any stranger than traveling by automobile or airplane ("Imagine, muggles flying comfortably in a metal bird _without magic!_ ").

"I'm fine," I nodded. "A bit dizzy is all." He patted my shoulder, but stayed standing while we waited for the rest. After a bit of a wait, Ron came next, stumbling only a little, and looked around with confusion.

"Where's Harry?" he asked. We all froze.

"What do you mean 'Where's Harry?'" Arthur asked trying to remain calm.

"He went right after you, dad." Arthur turned a bit white.

"You don't perhaps have another fireplace, do you?" he asked, looking round at Tom.

Somehow, we had lost The-Boy-Who-Lived.

"You four, go with Tom to his office, see if Harry is there. I'll, er, catch Molly up on everything, shall I?" The fire turned green again and we all ran up the stairs. Molly was going to be mad and that was not something any of us wanted to watch. Tom unlocked his office door and we all burst inside wildly. I suppose we were hoping to see Harry calmly standing in front of the fireplace waiting for us. But The-Boy-Who-Lived never makes it that easy, does he? Ron groaned in worry and the rest of us looked around the room as if Harry was actually hiding in the corner.

"Mum is going to kill us," Ron informed us sadly.

"Not you," I promised him. "You weren't one of the ones who promised her Harry would be just fine." Ron was not comforted.

"We'd best get back," Fred muttered. We turned towards the door, all wincing when Molly's raised voice became clear.

"You first," I muttered, ducking into the back of the group. Being the shortest, I was pretty sure Molly wouldn't be able to see me from that position.

As we descended the stairs, we got a good look at the situation before it got a look at us. Molly's face was a nasty red color and Arthur was practically quaking in front of her. Ginny looked close to tears herself, but Percy only looked mildly worried. He had his usual 'I told you so' look on despite the fact that he had not predicted anything bad would happen. I was tempted to run back upstairs, but then Molly caught sight of us. "All of you down here this moment!" None of us were dumb enough to disobey Molly Weasley. We trooped down the stairs, Tom leaving us to go attend to the bar, and I maintained my position in the back of the group.

"Molly, dear, perhaps we should all sit down?" Arthur offered. Molly shot him a look, but followed his advice with a bit of a huff. We all joined her at the table. "Now what _exactly_ did Harry say?"

"He said 'Diagon Alley'," Molly said.

"Stuttered a bit," Ron added. "I think he inhaled ash." Arthur nodded and looked vastly relieved.

"Well, that's a common beginner's mistake," he assured us, though by the looks the others passed around, none of them had ever done it. "I'm sure Harry's only gone a few grates too far," he added. "I recommend we go into Diagon Alley and check the shops. It's perfectly likely he just came out through there." We all looked to Molly for her agreement. After a reluctant moment, she nodded.

"You had all better stay with one of us though," she added sternly as we all stood. She added a particular look towards the twins. "We don't need to lose more than one of you today."

A chorus of "Yes, Mum,"s later and we all walked through the back alley into Wizard London.

Diagon Alley's charm had not faded for me. In my opinion, it was still the most magical place on Earth, and yes, I included Hogwarts in that assessment. Whereas Hogwarts was full of homework and classes and rules (albeit all far more exciting than their muggle counterparts), nothing in Diagon Alley could be reasonably compared to the muggle world. Even the ice cream shop was infinitely better than anything found in a muggle shop, though admittedly, some of Fortescue's combinations were a bit odd. I knew I should be worried about Harry, the others certainly were, but the shop fronts were much too distracting to be overly concerned.

"Arthur, I'll go check Gringotts. You lot go check the shops. Ginny, you come with me." Arthur nodded at his wife's already retreating form and rounded the rest of us up.

"Alright, you lot, we'll start by making our way down this row. Stay with the group and don't wander off." He sounded unusually stern and we all unconsciously hopped to attention. We searched the shops in a leapfrog-type way. Arthur, Percy and Ron would check one shop while the twins and I checked the next. We'd meet, confirm than neither group had found Harry, and then move on to the next two shops. We had done this eight or nine times and were once again stopping momentarily to check with the other group when Fred asked, "Is that Hagrid?"

"He's got Harry!" Ron called out a second later and we all recognized the messy mop at Hagrid's elbow. "Let's go!" Harry, Hagrid and Hermione were all looking at us when we reached them out of breath, having charged through the crowd to reach them. Harry and Hermione looked a little alarmed, but Hagrid looked amused. Arthur was the first to get his breath back enough to speak.

"Harry! We _hoped_ you'd only gone one grate too far…." He reached up to wipe away sweat, before adding, still out of breath, "Molly's frantic—she's coming now—" I looked around, but couldn't see Molly or Ginny over the crowd.

"Where'd you come out?" Ron asked.

"Knockturn Alley."

 _"Excellent!"_ Fred and George grinned.

"Not excellent," I told them sternly with a hand on my hip and a finger pointed at their faces. "Don't even try—"

"We've never been allowed in," Ron explained to Harry.

"I should ruddy well think not," Hagrid said. I nodded emphatically with this comment, then looked at Hagrid curiously, wondering why _he_ had been there.

"Hagrid?" I began, intent on finding out, "what were you doing in Knockturn—"

"Good ter see yeh, Molly," Hagrid cut me off at Molly's approach. I eyed him shrewdly.

Molly and Ginny were gasping for breath, apparently having run all the way here. "Oh, Harry—oh, my dear—you could have been anywhere—" She began dusting him off with the clothes brush she kept in her large handbag while Arthur fixed the glasses Harry had somehow cracked. As soon as it was confirmed that Harry was not truly injured in any way, Molly turned her attentions on Hagrid. "Knockturn Alley! If you hadn't found him Hagrid—" The big man immediately began blushing and decided to make his escape.

"Well, gotta be off," he said, gently pulling his hand from Molly's grasp. "See yer at Hogwarts," he added to us kids and made a hasty retreat.

"Well, then," Molly said, looking immeasurably relieved. She put her brush in her bag and looked around at all us kids, seeming to be setting her mind in order. "Hermione, dear, where are your parents?"

"They're waiting at Gringotts. I saw Hagrid while we were waiting and went to say 'hi' so I sent them ahead."

"To Gringotts then. Let's go, you lot." We all made our way through the crowds, trying to stay together, a difficult feat seeing as there were ten of us. And of course the twins were straining their heads towards the opening of Knockturn Alley. Finally, I just grabbed one of each of their arms and dragged them after me, grumbling the whole while about gingers.

"Guess who I saw in Borgin and Burkes?" Harry said to Ron and Hermione. That, of course, caught the twins' attention, and Arthur's too. "Malfoy and his father." Everyone knew the Malfoy reputation of being _Dark_ in every sense of the word so it wasn't a surprise that he would be seen down in Knockturn Alley. Draco though, was only twelve. Guess Malfoy Sr. was training the little one early.

"Did Lucius Malfoy buy anything?" Arthur asked in full interrogation mode. I knew he would gladly do almost anything to send the Malfoys to Azkaban. I always figured there was something he knew about Malfoy that the rest of us, even Molly, didn't know because he _hated_ the powerful family. And Arthur didn't hate anybody.

"No," Harry shook his head. "He was selling—"

"So he's worried," Arthur nodded. With all the raids going on lately, it was only a matter of time until he got to raid the Malfoy's manor. "Oh, I'd love to get Lucius Malfoy for something…."

"You be careful, Arthur," Molly warned him as we passed the bowing goblins and stepped into the bank. I hated those goblins. They were always cranky and they hated wizards, and you could tell by looking at them that they were nasty fighters. Being even the slightest bit rude to them made matters ten times worse so you had to be polite even when they sneered like you were worthless. "That family's trouble," Molly continued. "Don't go biting off more than you can chew—"

"So you don't think I'm a match for Lucius Malfoy?" Arthur sounded offended. Luckily for her, Molly didn't have to answer because Arthur noticed Hermione's parents standing awkwardly, looking out of place near the exchange tables.

I'm sure Molly would have said 'Of course you are, dear,' but the truth was that Malfoy could probably finish Arthur off with ease. Not because he was a better wizard by any means, but because he had money, connections and no morals. If the man wanted the Weasleys to suffer, he could make it happen without getting his hands dirty; in fact, he could probably make himself look like a saint in the process. Arthur, on the other hand, would never stoop so low even if he had the galleons to do so; he'd wait to punish Malfoy through legal paths. Which meant, Malfoy would probably never get the punishment he deserved, once again because he had money, connections and no morals.

"But you're _Muggles_!" Arthur said happily before Molly had to answer his question. "We must have a drink! What's that you've got there? Oh, you're changing Muggle money. Molly, look!" he said all that on one breath before inspecting the ten pound note Mr. Granger still hand in his hand. The Grangers looked overwhelmed and I certainly didn't blame them. Molly was speaking to a goblin about the Weasley and Potter vaults.

When she waved us all to follow her, Ron said to Hermione, "Meet you back here." I looked back and forth between the already retreating Weasleys and the uncomfortable looking Grangers.

"I'll stay here," I told the twins. I had already had one nauseating ride that day and I wasn't sure I could stand the twisty-turny ride through the dark that the twins had once described to me. I didn't have a vault so I didn't need to go, after all. The twins shrugged and left me with the Grangers, following after their family.

"Thank you," Mrs. Granger said with a tight smile. She was looking at my muggle clothes and obviously recognized that I was more familiar with her world than the rest of my family. I hadn't stayed on their account, but I nodded anyways. "Are you a m-muggleborn too?" The word sounded odd in her mouth and it was obvious that she didn't fully understand its meaning.

"Yup, but I live with the Weasleys now," I nodded at her. "I'm Skylar French."

"It's nice to meet you," Mr. Granger reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Alexander Granger and this is my wife Shelley. And of course you already know Hermione, I expect."

"Yes, I do. It's nice to meet you both," I shook his offered hand feeling awkward again. I never was much of a people person. The twins outgoing personalities covered my very introverted personality well, but now they were being carted around somewhere underground. "Um, did you already get your money all exchanged?"

"Er, no," Mr. Granger looked uncomfortably over at a few of the goblins who were pointedly ignoring us. "I'm afraid we're not entirely sure…you see Ministry of Magic personnel were here last year and escorted us through Diagon Alley." He had slipped into speech that was a bit more formal than it had been and I recognized the trait from Hermione. She always got very stiff and formal when she was uncomfortable too.

"No worries," I smiled, trying to relax the little family. If they insisted on being formal, I had to as well, and I hated formality. "I had to do this earlier in the summer."

"Why did you—?" Hermione started. The story of my family had spread through the school the previous year so she knew perfectly well that I should not have had muggle money to exchange.

"I nicked some from my parents," I muttered at her. "Don't judge me." My tone was mostly teasing, but her parents' eyes widened at my confessions of theft and I winced. Mr. Granger held his money a bit tighter. Hermione on the other hand, while somewhat scandalized, did not seem overly concerned. There was an understanding in her eyes that was similar to the look Molly had had when she found out. "Come on," I motioned to them, guiding them closer to the exchange counter. "We're here to make an exchange," I said to the goblin that had not yet condescended to look at us.

"How much will you be requiring today?" the wrinkled goblin asked. He sounded greedy and I watched him take in mine and the Grangers' clothes. He thought he could cheat us.

I looked up at the little sign Bill had pointed out when he and Arthur had brought me. That sign listed the last seven day's exchange rates, including the current day. While the exchange stayed pretty steady, Bill had told me, there was always slight variation. He was right; I could tell that the Grangers would get a few galleons less for their money than I had gotten for mine. "How much money did you bring to exchange?" I asked Mr. Granger quietly.

"Twenty pounds," he told me. He still looked a mite distrustful so I pointed to the exchange chart.

"The bottom of the chart is the exchange rate from pounds to galleons," I told him. "You've got to calculate it out before you tell him," I nodded towards the goblin behind the desk and added with a whisper, "or he'll cheat you out of some of your money."

The goblin apparently had good ears. "We do not _cheat_ ," he hissed at me. I blushed at being heard, but scowled back at him.

"Then you'll charge them for their ignorance," I said grumpily. The goblin shrugged as if this was wholly different from cheating. After preforming the calculations ourselves on a little notepad Mrs. Granger fished out of her purse, we finally managed to exchange the Grangers' twenty pounds for 6 galleons 10 sickles 24 knuts. Taking the leather sack the goblin handed him, Mr. Granger looked over at me.

"Do we need to count this?" he asked quietly. I shook my head. The goblins had a convoluted sense of fair, but if they said they were giving you X amount, they gave you X amount. At least, that was what Bill had said. He nodded and we sat by some potted plants to wait for everyone else. Before the silence got too awkward, Hermione began interrogating me about what to expect in school for the upcoming year. "After all," she said, "you just finished all the classes I'm about to take." _I wouldn't say_ just _finished,_ I thought to myself. _It's been a whole two months._ That two months felt like forever. I remembered Dumbledore's words at the End of the Year Feast about how we had plenty of time to make out heads "nice and empty" before school started again. I had certainly done that.

Eventually, though, the Weasley rumble interrupted my bumbling and I jumped up. Molly led us all out the front doors and out to the steps. We all had our own adventures planned for the day and we were all ready to get going. "Lee!" Fred called when he saw the familiar dreadlocks bobbing through the crowd. The twins and I hurried towards him while everyone went their own ways.

"We'll all meet at Flourish and Blotts in an hour to buy your schoolbooks," Molly called already on her way to help Ginny find some robes. "And not one step down Knockturn Alley!" she stopped to shout our way.

"How does she always know?" George asked with exasperation. I certainly didn't mind though. I had no desire to go down the creepy side streets; it looked like night even at high noon down that way. At least now I could blame Molly for my refusal if the twins tried to go anyways. They didn't though, thank goodness. After grabbing Lee and promising his parents we would stay on the main street, we went off.

"What have you three been up to?" Lee asked as he headed into Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop. It wasn't as well stocked as Zonko's, but it did have some good stuff. Even better, most the products were a bit cheaper than Zonko's.

"We taught Skylar to fly," Fred grinned at me. I scowled at him and began making plans for the Hair-Be-Gone shampoo I snagged off the shelf. Checking the price, though, I decided his teasing wasn't worth a whole two galleons and eight sickles and put it back. Instead I grabbed a large bag of Sparkers. They were cheap and happened to be some of my favorite prank products. They were like Poppers, that little muggle thing that was like gravel wrapped in tissue paper, but when you threw _these_ at the ground, the exploded with a larger bang and colorful pyrotechnics. I was thinking about making a few booby traps for my roommates around our bedroom. Perhaps under their pillows? The boys had saved up allowance and money they won through bets, and seemed intent on blowing all of it in one go.

"Any new product ideas?" Lee asked after updating us on his being grounded for letting his giant tarantula out into the garden where it ate five mice and all Mrs. Jordan's flowers. I was relieved when he told us the creepy crawly would not be returning to Hogwarts with us. I did _not_ like vermin. Even Scabbers, Ron's rat, gave me the shivers, especially when I caught him hiding in mine and Ginny's room.

We launched into telling him about the new candy and the issues we were having with it while the boys got several boxes of Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks. Ron, Harry and Hermione walked in then though so we shut up quick. "Don't tell mum," Fred commanded Ron and I wasn't sure if he was talking about the candy or the fireworks. It didn't seem to matter though because Ron just shrugged and the little trio went to investigate the next aisle. "We still need to do some research on that," I reminded them. "Maybe at Flourish and Blotts?"

"We could ask…." Lee had been gesturing towards the cashier, but the teenager was deeply immersed in a romance novel. Her makeup was pristine her nails were immaculate. She looked like she had never pulled a prank in her life, let alone built one from scratch. "Yeah, maybe Flourish and Blotts," Lee agreed swiftly. I wrinkled my nose at the girl as she sighed happily and turned the page of her novel. I was a bookworm myself, but this stuff just looked _sappy_. Yuck. We wandered around the shop a bit more, until George checked his watch and said informed us that we had fifteen minutes to meet the rest. We took our things to the cash register, annoying our lovely cashier by interrupting her reading ("I was getting to the best part!").

We got to Flourish and Blotts with plenty of time to spare, or at least, we should have, but a huge crowd was blocking the entrance. "What's going on?" I grumbled, eyeing the crowd and trying to spot a weak point that I could push through.

"Gilderoy Lockhart is here today signing books," Lee informed me, pointing to the banners hung on the upper level of the building.

GILDEROY LOCKHART

will be signing copies of his autobiography

 _MAGICAL ME_

today 12:30 P.M. to 4:30 P.M.

"Oh, joy," I said dully. "We're here just in time." I didn't really have anything against the wizard in question, except besides his style maybe, but the crowd he drew was problematic. Crowds made me claustrophobic. Especially when that crowd seemed to be made entirely of loud, high pitched, squealing women.

"Come on," Fred chuckled at my disgruntled expression. "We'll guard you." I rolled my eyes at him, but truly was grateful.

"I've got to go find my parents before I get into this," Lee said. "Otherwise, I'll never find them again. See you on the Hogwarts Express?" After exchanging our goodbyes, Lee left and the twins and I braved the crowd. Fred walked ahead of me and George walked behind, both of them making sure I got shoved around as little as possible.

"Thanks," I told them as soon as we pushed through the front door, much to the annoyance of the two women we had shoved past. "Where's your mum?" After a moment of searching, we found her, Arthur, Ginny, Percy and Mr. and Mrs. Granger standing about halfway up the line. Molly noticed us and whispered something to Ginny before looking nervously up the line to where Gilderoy Lockhart sat signing books.

Ginny ran up to us, her small form able to dodge and weave through the chaos. "Mum said to get your other books and then come get in line with us." Before we could respond, she ran right back to her mother looking towards Lockhart with little starts in her little eyes.

Fred shrugged and we followed him towards the section set aside for Hogwarts's required books. The twins needed only _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4_ which they could easily share and Molly had suggested I use their _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3_ from last year so, besides Lockhart's books, all I only needed to get my Transfiguration books. The school had sent a bit of gold for my books. Getting all those, we were once again forced to push through hordes of women to reach the rest of our family, who had moved forward in the line though not by much.

"Do we have everyone?" Molly asked as she looked around. "Where are Ron, Harry and Hermione?" The three in question squeezed through the crowd and joined us only a moment later and Molly smiled. "Oh, there you are," she said. "Good." She sounded rather…school-girlish and she kept playing with her hair. It was the same voice she used when Arthur surprised her with flowers one night about a month back. "We'll be able to see him in a minute." I wasn't sure why we needed to see him. In case we didn't already know what he looked like, posters were set up all over the usually calm store, each of them showing an enlarged, hopefully, picture of his face. In each of them, his blond hair was teased to the maximum volume and his teeth looked bleached. And of course, these weren't just pictures, these were _wizard_ pictures. The faces turned this way and that, smiling winningly and winking every little while, making the nearby witches giggle.

"If I ever act like that," I muttered to George who was the only one close enough to hear me over this din, "I want you to Stupefy me until I agree to act reasonable again." He looked to the quintet of witches I pointed towards, all of which were fawning over one of the portraits while he blew kisses to them. George looked half amused and half sick.

"If you ever act like that," he told me. "I'm dropping you in the Black Lake." I nodded.

"That works too." Finally, after turning the last bend in the line, we were able to see the celebrity in question. He looked exactly like his pictures and was smiling charmingly at a forty-something year old witch whose salt and pepper hair had been pushed into a quick bun. The way he wobbled his head as he winked at her threatened to cause his hat, already perched perilously, to fall. Lockhart threw his arm around the woman's shoulders and they quickly posed for the short photographer who was hopping here and there. I heard the little man tell some witch that a picture with Lockhart cost five galleons and watched her easily pull out the necessary (or completely unnecessary, depending on how you looked at it) gold and pass it to the irritable man. The photographer backed up for the next shot and knocked into Ron.

"Out of the way, there," he commanded. "This is for the _Daily Prophet_ —"

"Big deal," Ron grumbled, hopping as he rubbed his foot.

We were close enough to the front of the line by this point that Gilderoy Lockhart heard Ron's comment. He looked at the disgruntled redhead, I expect to inform him that _of course, it's a big deal_ , but then Lockhart saw Harry. He froze for just a moment before jumping to his feet and yelling, "It _can't_ be Harry Potter?"

"I bet it can be," I muttered to the twins as the crowd divided like the Red Sea. Lockhart pushed past the few women that didn't immediately move and rushed forward to grab Harry before pulling him back by the desk he had recently been signing books at. Harry turned Gryffindor Red with all the attention that was suddenly on him. I thought he should be used to it by now, but he looked completely out of his element. He squinted a bit at the rapid fire flashes from the photographer's camera and I started coughing at all the purple smoke that hovered over our group. Needing some air, I looked around before darting to the edge of the room where less witches were pushing and shoving. After a moment, Ginny joined me, lugging her cauldron behind her and dropping it heavily on the ground. When the pictures began to subside, Harry tried to duck away, but Lockhart just grabbed him back and put an arm around his shoulders, like he had for the witch before. Harry looked towards Ron and the rest of the Weasleys as if pleading for help. The twins both gave him a thumbs up and he looked like he was going to barf.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Lockhart yelled loudly, waving until all the witches calmed down. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time!" The women began buzzing again. "When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography—which I shall be happy to present to him now, free of charge—" The crowd applauded, but look Harry gave the man stated very clearly that he did _not_ want the autobiography. Lockhart ignored him. "He had _no idea_ that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, _Magical Me._ He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me." _Oh no._ "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

The entire crowd was clapping and cheering loudly, Molly included, and I slammed my hands over my ears. Did they have to be so loud? I was relatively certain that no one cheered this loudly when Quirrell was given the position. Harry stumbled to the side of the room, ending up by Ginny and me, barely able to see over the large stack of books Lockhart had dropped into his arms. I recognized _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ halfway through the pile. Apparently this really was his _entire_ works. He dropped the entire pile into Ginny's cauldron which sat on the ground next to her. "You have these," he told her. "I'll buy my own—"

"I bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter?" I turned to see Draco Malfoy only a few steps away. He continued until he stood right in front of Harry. " _Famous_ Harry Potter. Can't even go into a _bookshop_ without making the front page." I knew that jealous tone. It was the one he used in the common room during the evenings he felt things were getting a bit too quiet. He would complain loudly about this, that, and most of all, _Potter_. Because of who his daddy was and how much money his family had, no one ever dared tell him to shove it, not even the seventh years. Not even me, I was ashamed to say. Ginny wasn't scared though.

"Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" she shouted. I was very proud of my little sister. She hardly ever spoke to Harry (all about him in our room and out of his hearing, sure, but to him, rarely) and here she was yelling at a bully for him. I felt a combination of pride and worry for her. This was a _Malfoy_ after all.

"Potter, you've got yourself a _girlfriend_!" Draco sneered. Ginny turned a bright red and took a few small steps back. Finally, Ron and Hermione, who had apparently seen Draco from their place in line, reached us. They both had stacks of Lockhart's books and Ron looked like he planned on using his stack as a weapon.

"Oh, it's you," Ron said trying to act nonchalant as he wrinkled his nose. "Bet you're surprised to see Harry here, eh?" It took me only a moment to remember Dobby's warning. I looked at Draco with a measuring stare. The petty hate was obviously visible as he glared at Ron and Harry, but I couldn't tell if it was enough to try and trick Harry into not returning to school. He didn't seem to register or understand Ron's meaning though.

"Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley," Malfoy smirked. "I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those." Ron turned red too, but instead of stumbling backwards like Ginny had, he dropped his books and lunged for the blond boy. Only Harry and Hermione grabbing onto his collar kept him from swinging.

"Ron!" Arthur reprimanded as he reached us. Fred and George were on his tail and it was obvious they had all had to fight through the crowd too. "What are you doing? It's too crowded in here, let's go outside." Before any of us could obey him, a cold and silky voice spoke up.

"Well, well, well—Arthur Weasley." Lucius Malfoy had slipped up to the group at the same time Arthur had and he now stood at Draco's back, his hands on his sons shoulders as if supremely proud. Draco looked like a younger clone of his father. Arthur instantly stiffened and stood ramrod straight.

"Lucius," Arthur nodded. I could tell he was tempted to follow his son's bad example.

"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear," Malfoy Sr. said blandly. "All those raids…I hope they're paying you overtime?" His words were those of a concerned friend, but his sneer held malice and gloating. He leaned down to reach into Ginny's cauldron. She leaned away as he extracted her secondhand shop publication of _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_. "Obviously not. Dear me," his smile was twitching on the corners of his lips. "What's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?" All the Weasleys around me had turned some shade of red by this point, but Arthur was the darkest. His fists were shaking and his eyes flashed in a frightening way I had never seen from him before.

"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy."

"Clearly. The company you keep, Weasley…." He looked first to Mr. and Mrs. Granger, then to Hermione and then his gaze landed on me. I stiffened under his smirk. "I hear you even allowed _this one_ into your home. And I thought your family could sink no lower—"

The fight that had been threatening since Draco first made his appearance, broke wide open. Arthur flung himself at Lucius Malfoy, all of us kids hurrying out of the way. The two men knocked into a bookshelf, a mess of books tumbling off, but they didn't seem to notice. Molly, having reached us _just_ as it started, was calling for Arthur to stop while Fred, George and I egged the fight on. The crowd shuffled away from the men, creating a nice little fighting ring, but from the sound of crashes, causing more of a mess than before.

It was only when Hagrid appeared for the second time that day that any semblance of order reappeared. Hagrid pulled the two men off one another ("Break it up, there, there, gents, break it up!")

Both men were roughed up, Mr. Malfoy sporting a nice shiner on one eye. "Here, girl," he snarled at Ginny. "Take your book—it's the best your father can give you—" Before any other fights could be started, Lucius and Draco Malfoy swept out, holding their heads high.

"Yeh should've ignored him, Arthur," Hagrid told him as he patted Arthur off. "Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that—no Malfoy's worth listening' ter—bad blood, that's what it is—come on now—let's get outta here." The shop assistant almost stopped him, but when he looked all the way up at Hagrid's size, he decided not to press the issue. As we passed, I heard him muttering about ruined merchandise and bad publicity. It wasn't until later that I realized we hadn't paid for any of our books besides the Lockhart ones, the twins had been kind enough to grab mine for me. I rather enjoyed watching Arthur fight Malfoy—Lucius might have the upper hand in almost every other way, but I was pretty sure Arthur would have won if the fight had been allowed to continue—Molly on the other hand, was not amused.

"A _fine_ example to set for your children," she snarled. I noticed the Grangers behind her, terror on their faces, and I wasn't sure if it was from fear of the fight or fear of Molly. In my opinion, the latter was the more fatal one. " _Brawling_ in public," she was still growling. " _What_ Gilderoy Lockhart must've thought—"

"He was pleased," Fred interrupted her tirade. "Didn't you hear him as we were leaving? He was asking that bloke from the _Daily Prophet_ if he'd be able to work the fight into his report—said it was all publicity."

"He's probably going to say that they were fighting over a signed copy of his book, though," I said. Fred shrugged. Molly's fury though, kept us in check. It would be a very bad time to do something stupid; we'd probably be grounded until term started.

"Well, it was very…nice to meet you," Mr. Granger shook Molly and Arthur's hands when we once again reached the Leaky Cauldron. "We'd best be going. Our bus will be here any moment."

" _Bus did you say?_ How do—"

" _Arthur!"_ The Grangers left quickly, Hermione promising to see Ron and Harry on the Hogwarts Express. The rest of us flooed back to the Burrow before quickly scattering, leaving Arthur to deal with Molly.

At least by the time she called us for dinner, his busted lip had been healed, good as new and he was smiling and laughing again. Seeing this as a sign of safety, we all joined him at the dinner table, the familiarity of dinnertime chaos welcome after the haphazard events of the day.


	4. On to Hogwarts

A/N: Hello to all my lovely readers. I'm sorry this has taken so long to update; first my muse wandered off for a bit and then, by the time she was back, I had gotten hooked into a couple very good, but very long fics. And then, of course, computer problems descended. I apologize. I'm back up now though and will probably update again within the next few days.

Oh, and also, just in case you haven't yet, I recommend you read my first fic, _The Muggleborn Slytherin_ , before this one. Some things will make a lot more sense.

All done now, back to reading.

Now that we had our school lists and books, I had to face the fact that school was fast approaching. Not that returning to Hogwarts was in any way, shape or form a bad thing, but there was homework that would be due immediately upon our return. I am an excellent procrastinator, but I finally had to accept that I needed to complete a thirty-six inch essay for Binns, an eighteen inch essay for Flickwit, a twenty-four inch essay for McGonagall, a twelve inch essay for Sprout, and a forty-eight inch essay for Snape. One hundred and thirty-eight inches and I was left with only two and a half weeks to do all the research and writing. When Molly found out that none of us had started our homework yet (except Percy, of course, who was already done), she grounded the whole lot of us from Quidditch, flying practice and experimentation until all our homework was done. Since those made up about ninety percent of our regular activities, the following three days in a row found all five of us at the kitchen table with stacks of books and parchment. The only sounds besides our occasional comments were the scratching of their quills (I preferred pen) and Molly's radio which played far too much Celina Warbeck.

Ron and Harry finished first. They were only just starting their second year so they were given the least homework and, since they had all the same assignments, they could use one another's notes. Fred and George finished next, also using one another's notes and therefore only each really doing half the work. I, the only one without someone my year to help me, was stuck doing homework the longest. Percy attempted to assist me, but when, after criticizing my American spellings, my penmanship and my disregard for the oh-so-majestic quill, he recommended I scrap three days' worth of work because he didn't like my stance on the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, I told him through clenched teeth, that he had best go find someone else to irritate. Finally though, after another day of work, I finished it all and Molly released me to enjoy the sun for our last two weeks of freedom.

As it will, though, our summer came to a close. After a day full of laundry and packing, Molly served a farewell feast fit for a host of kings, forcing fourths on all of us since it was her last chance to do so. As if to prolong the night, Arthur suggested the twins demonstrate some of the fireworks they had gotten in Diagon Alley ("How did he know we had these?" George hissed) and we all enjoyed the living room light show with 'Oohs' and 'Ahs'. When their supply began running low, Molly, instead of sending us all to bed, brought us back to the kitchen for hot chocolate. Only when she herself was yawning, were we all sent to bed with the reminder that we had to be up early the next morning.

Somehow, the next morning did not go well. We all woke up early and should have had plenty of time to get everything packed and loaded, but despite all the laundry and work we had done the day before, nothing seemed ready to go. Still in my pajama's, I spent at least an hour running back and forth between my room and the twins' because somehow, half my Lockhart books, all three of my transfiguration books, two pairs of shoes and my sweater all ended up in their room. I ran into Percy twice and had to change the second time because his raspberry jam-covered toast got smeared across my t-shirt while I was lugging my trunk down to the car. Ginny was in hysterics because she couldn't find her diary which meant we had to unload the half-packed car and check all the trunks. It ended up being in my trunk, some of our things having gotten mixed up, and Ginny shot me the most detesting glare I had ever seen from her. My cat, Gus, decided that instead of sleeping in his cage, he would prefer to go raid the chicken house. The fleeing brood of chickens scattered while I tried to lure Gus back to me and one of the hens ran into Arthur's path, tripping him while he was taking Ginny's trunk out to the car. His swearing was far louder than the hens and helpfully scared Gus into his cage. Finally, all of nine us, our trunks and our pets were bundled into the little blue Ford.

"Muggles _do_ know more than we give them credit for, don't they?" Molly asked as she looked around the car. All five of the boys were seated comfortably in the backseat while Ginny and I sat up front with Molly and Arthur. I glance up at Arthur next to me, who silently shook his head that no, Molly did not know the full extent of charms placed on this car and _no_ , we should _not_ enlighten her. We were barely to the end of the driveway when George yelled for us to go back because he had forgotten his box of fireworks. We were only a little further down the road than before when Fred roared that he had forgotten his broomstick. I thought that we were safe when Ginny's screech next to me sent me flinching into Arthur.

"My diary!"

"Dear, we can send it to you," Arthur suggested as he looked at his watch with worry.

"No! I need it now!" No one liked fighting with Ginny, especially when she was that agitated, so once again, Arthur pulled a quick U-turn and we sped back to the Burrow.

"Molly, dear—" he said gently with another significant look at his watch.

" _No,_ Arthur—"

"No one would see—this little button here is an Invisibility Booster I installed—that'd get us up in the air—then we'll fly above the clouds." Before it was charmed, the switch he indicated would have been for the air conditioning, but I suppose wizards didn't need the air conditioning; a cooling charm would suffice. "We'd be there in ten minutes and no one would be any the wiser—"

"I said _no_ , Arthur, not in broad daylight." Arthur stopped arguing. The following two hour drive passed quietly, a surprising feet considering how many people and pets were in the car. Generally, on long car rides like this, I would have slept. Unfortunately, despite my restless night and early morning, I could not sleep. Perhaps in was Ginny bouncing on the seat next to me or Arthur's insane speeding (there had to be some charm on the car that kept us from being noticed by the police). Whatever it was, I could not sleep, which made me cranky and bored. All my books were packed in my trunk which left me with nothing to do. I don't do well when I'm bored. By the time we arrived at Kings Cross Station, with only fifteen minutes to board the train before it took off, I was impatient and short-tempered, so short-tempered in fact that I nearly attacked Percy when he dropped his trunk on my foot. We ran through the muggles, none of which were in any kind of hurry and reached the barrier with only five minutes to spare. The others looked around at the muggles anxiously, hoping they wouldn't notice when we ran through the not-so-solid wall, but I couldn't care less—who worried about the whole secrecy thing when seconds were ticking by and running out?

"Percy first," Molly directed and Percy hurried forward, his usual confidence evident in his step. Arthur put his hand on my shoulder and we hurried through directly after the prefect. Bursting into Station 9 ¾ we ran towards the gleaming red train, dodging through the crowd. Most of them, seeing our hurry, moved out of our way and we weaved around the others—it wasn't our fault if their stubbornness ended up putting them in the paths of our trunks. I could hear the twins behind us and Molly calling over her shoulder to Ron and Harry. "Everyone on, everyone on!" she called. She and Arthur levitated our trunks onto the train and we jumped on, Fred pulling Ginny up as the train started moving. As the train picked up speed, we waved to Molly and Arthur, promising to write them if we forgot anything else and to be _good_.

And with that last word, we sped out of the station.

"Come on, then," Fred said. He still sounded a bit out of breath, but then again, all of us were. "Let's go see if we can find a compartment." We wandered down the tight and crowded corridor, pulling our trunks along behind us while looking in the windows of the compartments. As expected, they were all at least half full with not enough room for all of us. When Fred and George pulled open the door of a compartment containing most of the previous year's Gryffindor Quidditch team, I shook my head.

"I'm going to go find some Slytherins to sit with," I smirked at their disgruntled expressions. I waved to Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson. Grinning a bit too mischievously, I ducked my head in to look at the notes Oliver Wood had carefully laid out on one seat. "Hey, there, Wood! Whatcha got there?"

"Out, Yankee!" he yelled, throwing his body across the plans to shield them from my sight. Snickering, I obeyed and continued down the corridor on my own, Ginny following her brothers into their compartment. Wood and I didn't exactly dislike each other, he just didn't trust me around his players. He was a smart, hardworking person, but was a bit maniacal when it came to Quidditch. His team very nearly won the Inter-House Quidditch Cup the previous year, but lost due to Harry being in the Hospital Wing after saving the school. Wood was still very cut up about it, apparently. With me being from Slytherin, he was sure that anytime I came near the twins or any of the rest of the team around game day, I was trying to sabotage them all. Not that I would do that, of course; Quidditch wasn't important enough to me.

Finally, I found the compartment I was looking for: the one containing Isaac Willworth, Terence Higgs, Justin Glort and Joshua Millet. When I had first been sorted Slytherin, I had hid the fact that I was muggleborn. It wasn't that I was ashamed of my heritage, but I knew that it could get me into trouble, so I kept it to myself—I hadn't lied per se, I just hadn't told the truth. However, when I pissed off Severus Snape, the school's Potion Master and my Head of House, he had taken it upon himself to spread the word of my bloodstatus. The vast majority of my house had taken my bloodstatus as a personal insult and had started hexing me, pushing me down stairs and tainting my food. Fred and George had been the first to befriend me, but after a couple months, some Slytherins came to accept me too. The first of those had been Isaac, Terence, Justin and Joshua. They were in my year and had defended me from the rest of our house when needed. Eventually, others learned to accept me as well, but they had been the first.

"Hey, y'all," I grinned as I slid the compartment door open, exaggerating my accent.

There was a chorus of "Hi, Skylar," as I levitated my trunk onto the overhead racks and let Gus out of his cage. "How was life with the Weasleys?" Justin asked skeptically. Like the vast majority of the school, they knew about the orphanage I had lived it. While they were glad I wasn't living there anymore, none of them had very high opinions of the Weasleys. They felt that Arthur should try to get promoted higher than the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, but Arthur was happy there. They didn't quite get that happiness didn't necessarily go along with money and power; it wasn't really a Slytherin mentality.

"Good," I shrugged at the understatement. "I really like it there." They all looked at me like I was lying, but finally they shrugged and I moved the conversation to them "How were your summers?" Terence launched into a play-by-play description of the Puddlemere United game his father had taken him to earlier in August. Not especially into Quidditch, most of it sounded like nonsense to me so I ended phased out for a large part of the monologue. I was grateful when he was interrupted by the opening of the compartment door. Figuring it was one of Justin's many sisters, I didn't look up until Terence bit out a terse, "Granger." My head snapped up and I found Hermione standing uncomfortably in the doorway. She faced me, but her eyes twitched to the boys who all sat looking at her in confusion.

"Hermione?" I asked, grabbing her attention again.

"Er, you don't know where Harry and Ron are, do you?" she asked. "I can't find them." I thought back trying to remember which compartment they had taken,]; maybe they had joined the other Gryffindor boys their age? I seemed to remember seeing Longbottom and Finnegan near the other end of the train. I was surprised though that they hadn't gone to find Hermione immediately.

"Um, I'm not sure. Did you check with the twins?" She nodded and the way she looked around at the other Slytherins plainly said she wouldn't have come in here unless she was out of options. "And Ginny didn't know?" Surely, Ginny would have noticed which compartment her crush chose.

"She was asleep."

"Wake her up then," I shrugged. "I'm sure she'll have some idea." Hermione looked skeptical, but nodded after another glance at the others. The door slid shut and Terence went right back to his detailed description of the "life changing game".

Isaac then told us all about the trip his family had taken to America. "My cousins are about to start at Salem," he told me. "I was looking at some of their pamphlets. Are the buildings really half underground?" The other three looked at me in confusion as well.

"Sure," I shrugged. "To avoid Muggle detection."

"Can't you just use Muggle-repelling spells though?" Joshua asked. "Hogwarts has some and so do most wizard homes." Isaac, Terence and Justin all looked at him in confusion.

"My house doesn't," all three of them said, roughly in unison.

"Oh." Joshua looked as though he had eaten something rotten. "Well most _pureblooded_ wizard homes do." The others nodded like this made sense. All three of them were halfbloods, considerably wealthy halfbloods, yes, but halfbloods, and their homes were all in Muggle villages. They knew Muggles somewhat, though not closely, only enough to interact with them when needed. I was watching Joshua though, who wouldn't meet my eye. The tone he was using…I had heard it before, but never from _him_. I couldn't place it.

"Well, why doesn't Salem use those kinds of charms?" Justin asked, interrupting the awkward silence.

I lingered on Joshua a moment longer before turning to Justin who sat next to him on the opposite bench. "Satellites," I said. "They're like giant Muggle cameras they threw up in space to take pictures of the Earth. Magic is too unreliable when combined with Muggle tech. There are wards to keep Muggles off the school property, but when the satellites went up, they had to make the buildings more inconspicuous."

"What about Hogwarts?" Isaac asked. "Can the _satellites_ see Hogwarts?" I shrugged.

"I'm not sure. Americans _really_ like their security surveillance though." They all sat quietly for a moment.

"Weird," Terence finally said and the others nodded in agreement.

"What about your summer?" I asked Justin, more to get the attention off me than because I was truly excited about his trip to Greece. Not that I wasn't happy for him, of course, I just wasn't a traveler; there were a couple places on my bucket list, most of them in Italy, but Greece didn't hold much interest for me. Justin was interested though. He kept talking, naming so many places, I lost count and the names turned to mush in his mind. Apparently, a lot of groundbreaking healers had studied in Greece and after attending an exhibit on healing discoveries made by Greeks, Justin had decided he wanted to be a healer. He intended to ask Professor Snape for permission to drop Divination in order to take Study of Ancient Runes instead. It wasn't mandatory to take Ancient Runes in order to become a Healer, but, especially if he wanted to study Greek practices, it would be helpful.

Joshua and his family had toured Asia for the entire summer. They had even gone to a dragon reserve in Mongolia. When I mentioned that Charlie, my recently adopted brother, worked at the reserve in Romania, he said loftily, "Mongolia's reserve is much larger and more diverse than Romania's." He used that tone again. The one that said I was a silly little girl and made me feel like I should stop talking. I did not like that tone coming from him.

"I can't wait to go to Hogsmeade," Justin said happily, several hours later. He was contemplating the chocolate frog he held in his hand with a dreamy expression. "We have to go to Honeydukes first, agreed?" I nodded along with the others. As third years, we had all had permission slips, signed by our parents, allowing us to visit the little, all-wizard village at the base of the hill that Hogwarts sat atop. This was the first year we were allowed to go, but I sat quietly because I had been before.

"Skylar, did you go to Honeydukes when you went to Hogsmeade?" Terence asked abruptly and I sat up a little too straight. They were not supposed to know about my illegal trips to the village. I had used the secret passageways the twins had shown me to accompany them on their trips; both the school-approved ones and the not-so-school-approved ones. "You know, when you went to meet Molly Weasley?" _Oh, yeah_ , I thought with relief. I had, once out of the almost ten trips, been actually allowed to go. Dumbledore had given me a pass to go to Hogsmeade shortly after Molly wrote him for permission to house me over the summers.

"Uh, no, I didn't go to Honeydukes then." _Not on that trip, at least._ I had been on nearly every other trip and it was every bit as good as Justin thought. "The twins like to go to Zonko's," I added, as if I hadn't been there myself half a dozen times.

"Oh, yeah," Terence said, grinning mischievously. "We're definitely going there!" We spent the next long while talking about the different shops we wanted to visit. I had been to most the places, but I looked forward to the trips nonetheless. I had never been to the Shrieking Shack that the boys, after several minutes of cajoling, convinced me to visit with them; the twins and Lee had gone, but haunted houses weren't my thing. We spoke excitedly until the train began to slow and the village in question became visible through the windows.

"Quick, we need to change!" Isaac said abruptly. We had gotten distracted. "Skylar, out!" After taking my only whole robes from my trunk and running down to the little bathroom, I fought through the then crowded hallway to get back to my compartment. The boys had already packed Gus into his cage for me and he looked annoyed at the sudden confinement.

"He kept trying to steal our robes," Justin said apologetically.

"And eat them," Terence added, exasperated. The other three chuckled and I was left to assume that Terence vs Gus had been entertaining.

"No worries," I smiled while I teased Gus with a long piece of string outside the bars of his cage. Terence watched the cat unsuccessfully try to catch the string, which was just out of his reach, with a certain amount of satisfaction.

After leaving Gus with our trunks, we followed along with the rest of the students, stopping by a waiting line of carriages. The previous year, I had ridden the boats up to the castle with the first years; I had never thought to ask how the rest of the students got up to the castle, but these carriages seemed rather…unexceptional. There were no horses pulling them, they moved by themselves like cars, though I could not see anywhere an engine might be hidden. Likely, they were just charmed. They swayed like they were pulled by horses and I assumed that they had been charmed years ago when pulled carriages were the common mode of transportation. The ride was longer than I expected, but I decided it was worth it when I stepped out of the carriage. Hogwarts stood before me, bigger and brighter than I had remembered (seriously, though, how could a castle shine that brightly when it was lit _only_ by candles?). My feet itched to run up the steps of the castle, but I feigned the same nonchalant attitude the other four had.

We followed the main mass of students through the front doors, somewhere in the midst of the group. The Entrance Hall was lofty, warm and oh, so welcoming. Professor McGonagall was standing on a stair a few steps up the Grand Staircase, lifting her to a position where she could effectively see over the entire horde of adolescents, giving us her usual stern gaze. When she saw me, she gestured me over and I approached cautiously, promising my friends that I would join them at our table. I pressed through the moving crowd, feeling like I was caught in a riptide. In all honesty though, I wanted to pretend that I hadn't seen her summons at all, but Minerva McGonagall was _not_ a stupid woman; she would have known I was purposely avoiding her. As I drew closer, I worried that she was going to call off my TA-ing and that I would have to sign up for regular, _boring_ , classes. "Professor," I greeted when I finally reached her.

"Miss French. I trust you had a relaxing summer?" The greeting was perfunctory, but I found myself thinking about it. My summer had been spent falling off a broomstick, flying a car illegally and making exploding candy.

"I did," I nodded. There was just the barest tick of her eyebrow moving upward, but it was gone before I could be sure I had seen it.

"I am glad," she said sounding only the slightest bit dubious. "I am also glad," she added, sounding sterner, "that you have ride yourself of those disfigured robes."

"Um, yeah." I certainly had _not_ rid myself of those 'disfigured' robes. Her eyes narrowed on my uncomfortable sound.

"You should be aware that while you are my teaching assistant, I will not allow your wardrobe to be as it was." I was instantly grateful for the buttons Molly had helped me sew onto my robes. Technically, my robes were no longer as they had been.

"Yes, ma'am," I said, hoping she couldn't see the half-truths. She looked at me carefully before suggesting I make my way into the Great Hall. The Front hall was nearly empty of students and the doors and been closed in anticipation of the First Years' arrival—they were going to receive the usual grand reveal.

Following her directions, I walked into the Great Hall, pausing only a moment to appreciate the sight. The floating candles, especially combined with the transparent ceiling and the golden dishes, gave the effect that we were among the stars. I was distracted from the sight though, by Justin, who was waving to me from our table and I veered left to join him. I sat down next to him, Joshua and Isaac sitting across from us. I looked around until I saw Terence down the table, talking with someone who had his back turned towards me.

"Did you see Gilderoy Lockhart?" Justin whispered excitedly. I looked towards the head table and saw that the blond superman was indeed sitting in the same place Quirrell had the previous year. Wearing a bright blue set of robes that seemed to glitter, he distinctly stood out from the rest of the staff around him. We weren't the only ones craning our necks to see the new professor. Lockhart was in a constant motion of waving, his gaze moving from student to student. I rolled my eyes when he sent me and my friends a wave and a jaunty wink. "What's he doing here?" I looked at Justin in confusion, then at the others who looked just as pleasantly bewildered.

"Didn't you know?" I asked. "He's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor." They all shook their heads and grinned at the announcement.

"Is he really?" Isaac apparently approved. "That's great! Have you read his books? He _knows_ what's going on, doesn't he?" I bit my lip feeling a bit doubtful myself. Sure, he obviously was accomplished in solving problems caused by dark creatures, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to learn from someone with such a huge ego.

"How do you know about it?" Joshua asked skeptically.

"It was announced at the beginning of August," I told him, bristling at his tone, which had become his regular tone over the summer, apparently. "I was _there_ when he announced it. Where were _you?_ "

"Eastern Asia, having dinner with a kitsune-tsukai," he bit back. Isaac and Justin, who had been watching the back and forth nervously decided to cut in, trying to dissolve the growing tension.

"Well, _I_ was in America," Isaac said quickly.

" _I_ was in Greece," Justin added. Before I could respond to any of them, Terence slumped onto the bench next to me and thunked his head onto the gold plate in front of him.

"What's wrong?" Isaac asked.

A muffled, "Quidditch tryouts are on Tuesday," issued from the plate.

"Well, good," Isaac assured him. "You'll blow them away again this year and—"

"I didn't 'blow them away' _last_ year," Terence argued, lifting his head just enough to glare at his best friend. "I barely passed last year. And you should have seen Flint's face…." Sports wasn't my area of expertise, but I wanted to comfort my friend, really I did. However, as I opened my mouth to say something, I wasn't sure what, I heard a comment from up the table that made my heart stop.

"What idiot goes flying a Ford Anglia where muggles can see?" a seventh year asked in disgust. I turned to him, expecting to see him looking straight at me. _But that was ages ago,_ I thought, _why didn't anyone find out before?_ When I saw the seventh year was perusing a newspaper article, I calmed. It wasn't about our trip to Surrey then. _But who?_ I worried next that Arthur had tried to fly home, but that didn't make sense either—Molly never would have allowed him to do something so obvious.

"Can I see that?" I asked the seventh year and, though he looked at me oddly, he acquiesced and handed me the newspaper. It was the _Evening Prophet_ , a wizarding paper and I wrinkled my nose when I realized this. Wizard newspapers always made me feel dyslexic. Muggle newspapers were very straight-forward—top to bottom, left to right—but a wizarding paper….There were stories printed at obnoxious angles, stories printed sideways, stories printed in wavy lines, even one printed in a perfect, spiraling circle. Every so often, words would ripple into or out of existence as edits were made on the master copy back in London. And then, of course, there were the moving pictures, the occupants of which where each vying for the reader's attention. I made myself focus though. This was important.

The headline of one of the largest stories, one of the only ones not printed in odd shapes, read: _FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFYES MUGGLES_ and I chewed my lip for a moment before getting the courage to actually read the article. The article listed five muggles who reported seeing the car duck in and out of the clouds. One man, who had some binoculars, reported that the car was being driven by two boys; one black-haired and the other with red… _oh, no._ Justin was trying to read over my shoulder. "What is it?" he asked.

"That's Arthur's car!" I hissed at him. "That means…." Terence, who had been reading over my other shoulder, started laughing, having just read about who, exactly, was driving.

"That means Potter and Weasley are going to be expelled for sure!" he practically sang. I scowled at him.

"That's not a good thing," I rebuked. "I'll be right back," I added to the others and jumped up. "I've got to…." I didn't bother to finish the sentence, I just hurried over to Gryffindor table. Or, I tried to. I wasn't even past Ravenclaws' table when I was stopped by a cold voice.

"And where do you think you're going, Miss French?" Professor Snape asked. "Surely, you're not turning traitor to your house so soon." He had a nasty smile and it was obvious he was just looking for an opportunity to punish me. Severus Snape didn't like _anyone_ , though he was able to tolerate Slytherins reasonably well. Except for me. The previous year, when I transferred from Salem, I had been assigned to sit in on some first year classes to make sure there wasn't an overwhelming lapse between Salem and Hogwarts' curriculums. One of those classes had been a double Potions class with the Gryffindors and I had watched while Severus Snape quizzed and insulted Harry more than anyone else. My natural curiosity had led me to use a spell I had not yet mastered despite the inordinate amount of time I had spent studying it. Legilimency almost never worked for me. The most I ever got was the merest taste of a person's thoughts, so I'll never understand why, when I pulled out my wand and whispered "Legilimens," I got a clear view of everyone Severus Snape loved and hated most in the world.

Only Dumbledore kept me from being expelled that day, instead sentencing me to detentions with Snape for the rest of my Hogwarts career. And from that point on, I joined Snape's list of Most Hated People. Dumbledore had forbidden me from using Legilimency again, but I didn't need to read Snape's mind to know that the summer had not erased his memory of me. _Dang_.

"No, sir," I stuttered. Somehow, over the summer, he had perfected his already perfect glare. I wondered vacantly if he practiced it in the mirror. "I'm just going to the, uh, Gryffindor table to talk to the, uh, twins because," _because apparently our little brother and his best friend stole a car and flew it to Hogwarts_. But I could say that because if there was one kid Snape hated more than me, it was Harry Potter. I hid the paper behind my back. Considering that he was familiar with Legilimency, at least enough to recognize it when I used the spell on him, hiding things from this man probably wasn't especially smart. He smirked gloatingly and leaned around me to snatch the paper form my ever-tightening grip. I winced. His eyes skimmed down the page and I could see the exact moment when his eyes hit that oh so vital bit of information. His lips curled into a Grinch-like smile and I worried about what sort of trouble I had just landed myself and the younger boys in.

"The Sorting is about to begin, Miss French," he told me with that sickening tone that clearly said some sort of misfortune was coming. "I suggest you take your seat now."

"Yes, sir," I agreed, wanting to distance myself from his gleeful self. A gleeful Snape was never a good thing. Besides, I couldn't do anything about it by that point—he already had the information he needed. Why did those boys always have to get themselves into trouble? I made it back to my seat just as the door that connected the Great Hall and the adjacent annex, where first years were stashed until the Sorting, opened and the first years, led by McGonagall exited. Snape slipped out the same door behind the last trembling first year.

The students around me, who had all been talking about Ron and Harry's grand and impending entrance thanks to my _dear_ friends spreading the news, quieted as the first years all came to stand still along the front of the room. Their eyes were wide as they looked at all of us and I remembered thinking it was very cruel that we had to face the rest of the school when I had stood with them one year previously. Some of the first years were looking around the Hall in awe. While I couldn't blame them, I hoped I hadn't looked so _open_ when I had first entered. The realistic side of my mind told me I had, while my denial side told the other side to shut up. Ginny was near the front of the group, a fact that didn't surprise me in the least.

McGonagall placed the old wooden stool up front and put the Sorting Hat on top, stepping away to give it room. We all stared at the worn hat, waiting for it to begin its song. Between Sorting Ceremonies, the Hat sat in Dumbledore's office and spent the entire year writing a new song. Oddly enough, he seemed to like his fifteen minutes of fame. I suppose if you're only allowed to do one thing every year, you'd be grateful to do it and you'd make sure to do it well. If he stopped, I wondered if they would throw him out or keep him around for sentimental purposes. When the Sorting Hat leapt to life, I noticed several first years jump slightly, something my realistic side told me I had also done. Snickering, I listened to his song.

 _I'm ragged, old and ugly_

 _I've been around a while._

 _But don't judge me for my patches, dear_

 _For I've a certain style._

 _Put me on your head, you'll see_

 _There's nothing hidden there_

 _For I can see your every scheme_

 _The secrets hidden 'neath your hair._

 _Look around this Grand old Hall_

 _Four tables where you might sit,_

 _But just one look between your ears_

 _And I'll tell you where you fit._

 _For a thousand years ago, about_

 _Our four founders taught together_

 _Until there came a single hitch,_

 _A clash they could not whether._

 _Said Clever Rowena, this is a school,_

 _We'll teach those fixed on knowledge._

 _Brave Godric shook his head, he thought_

 _Only those of courage should they acknowledge._

 _Sweet Helga held up a hand and said_

' _Our students must work hard'_

 _But Sly Salazar wanted only the best_

 _And thought the rest they should discard._

 _They divided up their students thus,_

 _But as the years went on,_

 _Rowena knew a time would come_

 _When they who chose were gone._

 _She brought the issue to the rest_

 _For the four to make a choice._

 _T'was Godric though who gave me a tap,_

 _Life granted, I was their voice._

 _So slip me on! I know my job!  
I have never missed._

 _I know which name for you to take,_

 _Where you will best exist._

The hat finished his song and the hall burst into applause, though most of the first years looked a bit bewildered. Without any further introduction, Professor McGonagall stepped up to the Hat again and lifted it from the pointed tip and read off her list, "Alby, Jillian." A small, dirty-blond girl pushed her way out from between two, much larger boys and lifted herself onto the stool. The Hat covered nearly her entire face, but after only a moment announced, "RAVENCLAW!" The little girl scooted off the stool and took her place among the cheering house of students one table over from mine. I noticed Mason Clifford, one of the children I had lived with at the Children's Home in Ottery and someone I did _not_ like, pat her on the back welcomingly.

I'll admit, I wasn't much interested in most of the sortings. I didn't know any of the incoming students besides Ginny so, while I cheered with my house whenever we received a new Slytherin, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention until "Weasley, Ginevra," was called. She was one of the last students still unsorted and the last two watched her nervously as she mounted the rickety stool. The Hat was placed on her head and drooped so low that only her reddening cheeks and ends of her red hair were still visible. From what I had heard, the Weasleys were always sorted quickly, usually instantly in fact. I had watched enviously the previous year when the Hat yelled "GRYFFINDOR" less than a second after it went on Ron's head. Weasleys were always sorted Gryffindor.

But the Hat said nothing. At least, nothing the rest of us could hear. I assumed that, as usual, it was whispering in her ear and picking apart her thoughts and I could tell that, whatever it was saying, she didn't like it. Her confident little smile had turned into a concerned frown and she bit her lip. Thirty seconds passed and people began getting restless—it was rare for a sorting to take so long. I craned my head to look at the twins across the four tables and caught their eyes. They looked concerned. I couldn't imagine Ginny being anything except Gryffindor, but the Hat saw things that no one else could. Perhaps….Finally, the Hat twitched into motion and called "GRYFFINDOR!" Professor McGonagall stepped forward to remove the Hat and Ginny jumped off the stool gratefully and headed towards the cheering table. I shrugged at Fred and George who turned to cheer with the rest of the Gryffindors.

After the last two sortings, both Hufflepuffs, I noticed that Snape had slipped back in at some point and stood against the wall. He gestured to both Dumbledore and McGonagall with a significant look. They both nodded to the grim man and after she had put the stool and Hat away, and Dumbledore had said his usual few words of gibberish, our food appeared in front of us and the three slipped out of the Great Hall. Deciding not to worry about it for now, I ate. The house elves that worked in the castle were excellent little chefs and I had never yet been left unsatisfied with their ware. And that night was no exception.

I sat eating, not talking much while I listened to everyone around me who had returned to the most recent misadventure of Ron and Harry. The story got wilder and wilder as it was passed from person to person. It started out that the boys were still on their way here, but after a few retellings several people claimed that they had fallen out of the air and were dead. A few more retellings and they weren't dead anymore, but were expelled and would be exiled to the Muggle society in northern Canada. Someone rudely told that storyteller that the idea was ridiculous because Dumbledore would never expel Potter. Because of course it wasn't the exile bit that was ridiculous.

There was a hush when Snape entered the room again, but after a scowl from him, we wisely went back to our food. Several minutes later, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall reentered the Hall and Dumbledore smiled benevolently, ignoring all questions and encouraging us to go back to our meal. It was only when we were full after several helpings of dinner and dessert that the food disappeared and Dumbledore again stood.

"Good evening to you all! Another school year has come and I am pleased to see you all back with all of you parts intact. To our new students, welcome! And to our returning students, we are happy to see you returned to us." He beamed. "Now, before I release you to your comfy beds, I do have a few short announcements to make first. Firstly, Mr. Filch has asked me to remind you to check the list of banned items, located in his office." I smirked knowing the twins had a good percentage of those things in their trunks. "In addition, if you have an interest in playing on your House Quidditch team, you should give your name to your Head of House who inform their Quidditch Captains. Good luck to all! And finally," all heads swiveled to Lockhart, knowing what was coming back. I noticed several older girls around me blushing and nearly all the boys looking at the man like he was their idol. "We are pleased to welcome Gilderoy Lockhart to the staff. He will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I am sure you will all learn much from his example." Dumbledore's words were always truthful, but just then, they sounded…off. I sighed, not looking forward to the upcoming year of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. Most everyone else however, clapped enthusiastically, several whistling and cheering. Annoyed, I clapped my hands over my ears to defend from the din. "And now, I must release you to the warm and comfy bed that await you in your dormitories. Good night."

With that, everyone stood, pushing our way out the Hall and into the corridors. Prefects were calling for first years, gathering the new students around them like a hen does with her chicks. The rest of us, not needing the prefects to guide us to our dormitories, pushed ahead and into the corridor, splitting into two groups as the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws went up the Grand Staircase while the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs headed down. The Hufflepuffs' common room was only one floor down, near the kitchens, but we Slytherins had several more flights to descend. Our common room was in the dungeons and beneath the lake. Once, that had been rather deterring to me, but by the beginning of my third year, it was oddly comforting. Until I reached my dormitory.

I had only two roommates, two girls, both rich and both purebloods. Lucille Hart was a lovely, but annoyingly ditzy girl. She was stylish in everything from her pixie haircut to her perfect makeup and nails. Her family was wealthy and she had hardly a care in the world. Unfortunately, Lucille blindly followed the lead of anyone who bothered to direct her, a sweet supporter until they sent her as a weapon. The person directing her was usually Tatiana.

Tatiana Bristole was a shrewd girl, just as beautiful as Lucille, but in a sharper way. Her brunette hair was long and flowing. Her makeup was dramatic. She was a planner. She could find your weaknesses quickly and learned how to use them against you even faster. Tatiana never did anything she didn't mean.

"Skylar," Lucille smiled brightly. "It's so good to see you! How was your summer?" I looked at her cautiously. By the end of the previous year, we had been at the point where I ignored my roommates and they ignored me and it had all worked well. Any kind of acknowledgement felt like some sort of a trap.

"It was good, Lucille," I said carefully. "How was yours?"

"Oh, it was lovely! Mummy and Daddy took me to France and we…." I let her prattle on while I released Gus from his cage and unpacked my things. She rambled about this and that for ages until Tatiana spoke up.

"That's enough, dear," she said sharply and Lucille immediately shut up. "I want to sleep," she added haughtily. "Extinguish your lamps." Lucille obeyed immediately, getting into her own bed, but I didn't take well to the arrogant girl ordering me about. Keeping eye contact with her, I lowered the level of the light just a few notches, hardly anything at all. She narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips. "Why can't you ever do what you're supposed to?" she hissed at me.

"Oh, Tatiana, _dear_ ," I sneered. "That would be no fun at all."


	5. Back to Class, You Lot

One restless night later, I walked with the other Slytherins to the Great Hall. However, instead of continuing with them to our table on the far left, I turned and approached the table on the far right. I needed to speak with a few Gryffindors. "How are they?" I demanded, plopping down next to Lee and across from the twins.

"Good morning to you, too," Fred said cheerfully.

"Toast?" George offered. After a second or two of consideration, I accepted the proffered piece of bread.

"Really though," I insisted as I took a bite. "Did they get here alright? Did they get in trouble?"

"They're fine," Lee promised. "Look." He pointed to where the two boys in question were entering the Great Hall. As they walked along the table, they were greeted with congratulations, applause and pats on the back. Both of them were pink and smiling when they sat down, though Hermione's frosty attitude quickly sobered them up. Obviously though, there was nothing seriously wrong with them, physically at least, and nodded to myself.

"In that case, I'll just be getting back to my own table. Otherwise Snape won't give me my schedule and I'll probably be late for my first class."

"Ah, yes, no need for detention so soon," Fred nodded sagely and I grimaced at him. _Don't put that kind of thing into the universe_ , I thought. With my luck, I figured it would just give the evil spirits ideas.

"But if you want to lose Slytherin a few points for us, we wouldn't mind," Lee grinned as I adjusted the strap of my book bag again; he yelped when I yanked on one of his dreadlocks in response. Ignoring his grumbling, I started back to my own table, turning back when I heard George call something. The owl post had just flooded in and, despite what you might thing, owls, with all their hooting and wing-flapping, are not quiet.

"What?" I called back.

"Meet us after classes today!" I shot him a thumbs up before hurrying over to Slytherin table taking a seat between Isaac and Joshua just as Snape reached us. He set up schedules for all the boys before shooing them away with just a look. They all scurried out of the Great Hall with worried glances my way. Not bothering to look at me himself, Snape started working on my schedule, taking far longer than he had on any of the others.

"Miss French," he began, but before he could finish, a shriek rose in the hall. The sound was loud and familiar and I was confused for a moment at hearing Molly's infuriated lecture-voice in this setting. It was another beat before I realized that everyone was looking at Ron and the red envelope in his hand.

 _ **"I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE AND WHEN WE GOT THE LETTER FROM DUMBLEDORE LAST NIGHT, I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER WOULD DIE OF SHAME—"**_ It rather looked like _Ron_ was about to die of shame. His face was frozen in an odd, half-crumpled expressed and I don't think his ears had ever been redder. Harry, at his side, was a contrasting green and looked like he might vomit at any moment. I didn't blame them; an angry Molly was a scary thing to behold, especially when the entire school was watching. _**"I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED—YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT AND IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME."**_ There was no 'Love, Mum', 'From, Your Disappointed Mother' or any sort of departing words. Instead, the already dropped letter burst into flames and I wondered fleetingly if all howlers did that or if Molly's anger was just that strong. I had never seen a howler before, though I knew a few Slytherins had received them the previous year. Those, however, had come while we were in the common room, not at mealtimes and, therefore, no one besides the recipient, who usually ran off with the red envelopes, had to experience them.

Had the screaming letter been from anyone except Molly, I would have laughed. As it was, Molly was upset, and, as I had learned was the rule for any family, if mama was unhappy, everyone else was too. Even the twins, who I knew would tease Ron about the entire situation at some later date, didn't look like laughing for the moment. A few anonymous others in the crowd, however, had no problem mocking the youngest Weasley boy and, after the tense silence was released, talk rose to its normal level once more.

When I turned back to Snape, he had a smug smirk on his slimy face. "Oh, dear," he gloated. "How _embarrassing._ " Reminding myself of Fred's earlier warning of detention, I remained silent, not rising to Snape's bait. His lip only curled more. Finally, he handed me my filled-out schedule. "Off with you," he nodded and I turned on my heel, ready to be away from him. "Miss French," he added and I stood rigidly, refusing to turn back to him. "The headmaster asked me to remind you that your detentions with me will be continuing this year. Friday evening, my office." By the time I had looked over my shoulder at him, he was already gone. With nothing else to do besides scowl, I stomped up to History of Magic.

History of Magic is not how anyone wants to start their day, especially when it was a double period. The subject matter is dry, made worse by Professor Binns monotone. The only interesting thing about the class was that Binns was a ghost, but that excitement wore off the very first day of meeting him. He did not look at the students while he taught and he could not draw on the chalkboard, so he simply recited with his eyes downcast, having memorized his lectures decades ago. Though he almost always assigned long, boring essays, I wasn't sure how he graded them, or even _if_ he graded them, seeing as he could neither pick up a scroll of parchment nor grasp a quill. As Binns' droning buzzed in my ears, I wearily hoped this dull beginning was not an omen for the rest of the year.

I had dozed off and jerked awake when the bell finally, _finally_ , rang. Binns didn't seem to notice that we all ran like tormented spirits set free from Hell; he was still droning about the first witch hunts of the Medieval Age when the door slammed shut behind us. Having avoided the inevitable essay Binns liked to announce at the end of his lectures, I followed Isaac, Terence, Justin and Joshua out to the Black Lake. The days would soon be turning cold, but for the time being, we were caught in that pause of weather that came between the overbearingly hot summer and the dominantly soggy autumn. It was one of those picture-perfect carefree moments of adolescence; we sat on the edge of the lake teasing one another and laughing as we threatened to throw each other in. It was a scene even Norman Rockwell would be inspired by.

The mood ended, though, when we walked back inside for lunch. "Skylar!" I heard the Perfectly Pompous Prefect Percy call from the landing of the Great Staircase. I sighed at the overly familiar tone of disapproval and arrogance. "Ten points from Slytherin for those disfigured robes!" My robes were unbuttoned all the way down and had been the entire day, but no one, not even Snape had yet commented on my appearance, though I had admittedly earned a few odd looks from the first years.

"Yes, Percy," I exhaled, walking away from him without another look back. I could hear his sputters of disbelief at my disregard of his magnanimous personage.

"Skylar," Justin groaned, "You can't do this again." Justin was the worrier of our little group. He had never been in detention, never even lost points for our house. My fifty-two detentions and innumerable points lost during the previous year had him convinced I was going to be expelled and my wand would be snapped and I would be sent to live with my Muggle parents again and I would never, ever, ever achieve anything worth mentioning. At least, that was what he had said when he lectured me, hands on his hips and lips pursed.

"I'm not doing anything," I told him with a smile.

"You're rebelling," Isaac reminded me. "And if you don't stop, you're going to lose us the House Cup again this year."

"Oi!" I exclaimed. "That was not my fault. I earned back almost all my points and we were winning! It's Dumbledore's fault for awarding Gryffindor all those points." Terence opened his mouth, but I cut him off. "And if you think we would have magically won if I hadn't lost a single point last year, you are very, very wrong. Dumbledore fished around and gave _Longbottom_ points just so Gryffindor would win!" At the nervous squeak from my left, I turned to see the fat and forgetful boy in question hurry by with a look back at me. _Oops_. Terence though had closed his mouth in grudging agreement with my statement.

"Forget points," Joshua said in _that_ tone. Terence and Justin both made sounds of incredulousness at the statement, but he ignored them. " _This_ ," he gestured to my open robes and muggle clothes, "isn't going to help you anywhere. It won't help you get you better grades, it won't get you a job, it won't get you respect from anyone worthwhile, it won't even help you get a date. It's more trouble than it is worth so why don't you stop pretending to be a muggle and act like a normal witch?" With that outburst, he strode off, leaving all four of us looking at his retreating back in surprise.

"Is he, uh, ok?" I looked at Justin in confusion.

He wouldn't meet my eyes, but at the time, I attributed it to his worry for his best friend. "He'll be fine," he assured us. "His parents were just a little hard on him this summer. I'm sure he's just working the frustration out of his system." Nodding we followed after our apparently frustrated friend only to find that he had chosen to sit with a group of fourth years that included his cousins, the Carrow twins, Flora and Hestia. We sat elsewhere, allowing him the space he obviously thought he needed.

Following lunch, we had Herbology. In my opinion, Herbology ranked only just above History of Magic in Class Usefulness. Most of the plants we learned about were not things we would ever encounter in our daily lives. There were, of course, some of the plants we used in potions, but really, those only made up about sixty percent of our curriculum. The last forty percent was about things that only people like Justin, who planned on being a medical expert, needed to know. And in addition to all that, Tatiana was excelled in Herbology.

Call me petty, I know, but it was irksome when a student Snape had once referred to as so inept, "no lover nor employer would be able to overlook it" beat me consistently in a subject. I grew green. And no, not in the way Professor Sprout would approve of. Professor Sprout started the double period by deducting points for my attire and ended it by awarding Tatiana points for her perfect handling of Puffapod seeds. Needless to say, Wednesdays were not looking to be my favorite day of the week.

After trudging back up to the castle and depositing our bags in our dormitories, I went off to find the twins with my journal in hand, figuring, from their earlier mischievous attitudes that we might need it. It was only after I had stepped out of my common room, however, that I realized I had no idea where the boys were. With no other ideas and wishing I had the Map with me, I mounted the Great Staircase all the way up to the Gryffindor common room. And only then did I remember that I didn't yet know their password.

It wasn't technically against any rules for non-house members to have access to the House common room (we had checked) so the previous year, the twins had kept me updated on the password as it changed every couple weeks or so and Percy had been left with nothing to do except scowl at me. The twins had never expected me to reciprocate—I doubt they would want to spend much time around the Slytherin common room even if I had given them the passwords—and they never made me feel unwelcome. Unfortunately, I hadn't been updated with the most recent password yet. The Fat Lady, a painting and guardian of Gryffindor Tower, had never liked me much. Though she was required to open when the password was said, even for me, she didn't trust me and I knew perfectly well that no amount of persuasion would convince her to open for me without the satisfactory password. Left without any other option, I sat against the opposite wall with a sigh, trying not to shift uncomfortably under the Fat Lady's imperious gaze. I figured that within the next few minutes, someone would be by to let me in; after all, I had been a regular the previous year. Unfortunately for me, the next group who came by were first years.

There were only three of them; a scrawny and sandy-haired little boy carrying a large muggle camera in addition _all_ of his school books, a small girl with dark hair and big, cow eyes who seemed to bounce as she walked and lastly, a tall and lanky boy who looked a bit bored with the other two. The sandy haired boy was talking animatedly about how he was able to get a picture of Harry Potter earlier in the day and asking, in a voice that sounded like _re_ -asking, "Conner, you'll help me make the potion to make the pictures move, right?"

"I don't know how," Conner said as if the very idea was ridiculous, but when little Colin's shoulders drooped, he reconsidered. "We'll find someone who knows how to make it, alright?" Little Colin perked up immediately and opened his mouth to speak again, but the girl cut him off.

"Did you get a picture of Professor McGonagall turning her desk into a pig, Colin?"

"No," Conner snorted, "he was too busy getting a picture of that Ginny Weasley." I smirked at the revelation and wondered if there was any way that the attraction went both ways. Colin might be a bit more realistic than the woefully-shy-in-all-things-feminine-Harry-Potter. Before the now pink-cheeked Colin could retort, I stood from my place against the wall, drawing their attention to me.

"'Scuse me," I said with a friendly wave. "Do you think you could let me in? I don't know the password yet." They looked at me first with uncertainty, peeking at one another and each waiting for one of their friends to take charge, but I could see the exact moment they each noticed the green lining of my robes. _How do we teach that rivalry so quickly?_ I thought with exasperation.

"Er, I don't think we're allowed to," the little girl finally piped up, before adding a hesitant and insincere, "Er, sorry." With that, they did a synchronized about-face, turning to the gloating Fat Lady. I leaned forward hopefully when little Colin inhaled in preparation to announce the password, but the little girl clapped a hand over his mouth with a significant look back at me and instead whispered the password. I scowled at them as they caught the door and, with nervous looks back at me, quickly pulled it shut before I could catch it. I slumped back into my previous seat.

Had it been nearly any other group of Gryffindors, I was sure I would have been let in. I had spent enough time in their common room that many considered me an honorary Gryffindor of sorts. The stigma of Slytherins being evil, cruel and just plain nasty was so prevalent that, when I didn't exhibit the expected signs of badness, many decided that I wasn't really a Slytherin at heart, that somehow, the Hat had made a mistake.

It hadn't, of course, but the silly belief gave me access to their common room so I never corrected them.

Unfortunately, the next Gryffindor who came along was also a first year; fortunately, it was Ginny and I didn't think I would have any trouble convincing her to let me in. "Hi, Skylar," she beamed and sat on the ground next to me before I could stand instead.

"Hey, Ginny. How was your first day?" Her eyes clouded slightly as she thought and I wondered if something bad had happened. Had someone bullied her? I had gone through enough of that my first several weeks at Hogwarts; if she was being tormented, I had no issue with making sure the individuals were tormented right back—I was very good at that.

She brightened however, and said, "It was good. We had Transfiguration and Charms and I got my matchstick to turn silver, except that it didn't get sharp, but since I was the first one to change it at all Professor McGonagall gave me five points and…." As I listened to her babble about her day, I was surprised to find that I was actually interested. I am not, nor have I ever been, an especially charitable person. If someone rambled about Quidditch or their love-life or a myriad of other things I found utterly uninteresting, I could nod, 'hmm', and 'uh-huh' at all the necessary points, but I was sure that even from the outside, my insincerity was obvious. But I _wanted_ to listen to Ginny's day. Had Colin told me the exact same story, or even Isaac or Justin, I would have brushed him off, but since it was Ginny who was speaking, I paid rapt attention. The feeling of sisterhood was a familiar feeling, but I hadn't experienced it in nearly two years. I found myself asking her questions; how she felt about the different teachers and subjects, if she was finding her way around alright, had she had a chance to see the grounds yet, and more. When I mentioned the apparently crushing Colin, she laughed and shook her head. "He's a bit _weird_ ," she confided and I nodded my hearty approval and relief. The boy was a bit in the clouds.

"Why are you sitting out here?" she finally asked and I remembered that the boys were probably wondering where I was. I was surprised they hadn't come out to look for me yet.

"I don't know the new password yet—Fred and George forgot to tell me," I explained, "and the other first years who passed by didn't trust the big, bad Slytherin." I crossed my eyes and made a face. She laughed and, taking my hand in her surprisingly strong grip, pulled me to my feet.

"Well, come on," she commanded. We approached the Fat Lady who looked at me like I was the muck on the heel of her shoe, but obligingly opened when Ginny sang, "Wattlebird." Gryffindor always had the oddest passwords; at least Slytherin's passwords were relevant and not utter gibberish.

"Thank you, Ginny," I told her gratefully, "I've been sitting out there for _ages_."

"Of course," she shrugged, "but do you see Fred or George anywhere?" I joined her in scanning the common room and was mildly irritated, though not overly surprised, to see that the signature Weasley red hair, was nowhere to be seen except for on the girl at my side.

"Their probably just up in their room," I sighed. "I'll go find them." Ginny nodded and headed off to a trio of first year girls near one of the windows. As I passed through the common room, making my way towards the boys' dormitories, a few people called out greetings and without altering my course, I waved back. The girl from the corridor noticed this and, nudging her two friends, looked at me with wide-eyed apprehension. Colin hefted his camera and blinded me with a flash before I could shield my eyes. I hoped he wouldn't show the picture to anyone. Though it wasn't illegal for me to be in the common room, I didn't necessarily want to draw administrative attention to my frequent comings and goings. I wrinkled my nose at the first years before turning away and mounting the steps of the boys' dormitories.

Their room was near the top, the plaque on the door having been changed from THIRD YEARS to FOURTH YEARS over the summer holidays. Pushing the door open, I expected to find them goofing around in an already messy room, but, though I found the expectedly disastrous dorm, there were no redheaded twins nor dreadlocked friend. "Where have you idiots run off to now?" I asked myself. Mentally, I considered the next most likely places for them to be: the kitchens, the Quidditch pitch, the Forbidden Forest, the secret passages. I was about to turn and leave when I noticed a blank piece of parchment spread across the foot of the spare bed.

I knew what it was before I approached of course. Its tattered and grungy appearance was deceiving because the Marauders' Map was a brilliant treasure. The twins had found the Map back in their first year and, after unlocking its secrets, Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, the Map's architects, had given Fred, George and Lee the knowledge to rule the school. The boys had later introduced me to the Marauders and I had learned a few of their secrets as well. I doubted that even the professors knew so much about the school as we did. Maybe Dumbledore did. Maybe.

A note sat next to the Map: _Skylar, Let's play a game, shall we? Hide-and-Go-Seek. You're It! Good Luck. –L, F,G_

This was new and my lips curled in an anticipatory grin.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."


	6. Fear of Heights, Love of Stars

I had an absurd obsession with the Marauders' Map. Absurd, not because it wasn't worth the obsession, but because the Map wasn't mine. It wasn't the twins' either though they kept it in their possession. The Map belonged solely to the Marauders'; they were our benefactors, generous enough to lend it to us developing pranksters. Someday, after we all graduated, I suspected we would pass it along to the next round of troublemakers. Until that sad and inevitable day came though, I wanted to horde it to myself.

In the two years since I had discovered magic, I had been presented with more magical objects than I could count and none of them got my heart racing like the Map did. It made me want to scheme and sneak around and have some fun. It made me want to snoop and spy and solve some puzzles. The Map made me powerful.

And then, of course, there was the curiosity. We didn't know who the Marauders were. Pranksters of the past, obviously, but who? The boys weren't especially concerned, they figured it was just the kind of lovely gift you accepted and didn't think about for too long or, as Lee phrased it, "Don't look a gift hippogriff in the beak, Skylar." On the other side, however, there was me. Curiosity was one of my many flaws. When my friends, Gryffindor or Slytherin, dragged me into the midst of a party or group, I was content to sit silently and listen to what everyone was talking about, unwilling to miss anything. I had learned Legilimency, well _tried_ to learn Legilimency, when I was twelve all because I was suspicious of what went on in other people's minds and I couldn't stand not knowing what they thought of me. Understandably, I wanted to know who the Marauders were. I _needed_ to know who they were. Unfortunately for me, the Marauders, who still occasionally gave snide remarks, written in the margins of the parchment, weren't telling me their secret identities. It was…irritating, to say the least.

 _"Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, Purveyers of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present THE MARAUDERS' MAP."_ The familiar words appeared on the parchment in the usual spidery font and my smile grew. The words disappeared and the Map appeared, showing every classroom, every corridor, every closet, every inch of the castle. Dots ran around the Map like beetles, chasing each other through the permanent lines of the walls, each dot labeled with the name of its owner.

The game was to find Fred, George, and Lee's dots, but they would know better than to hide somewhere easy. George and Lee both had a knack for finding the names they were looking for quickly—I was certain that if I ever got them to sit still long enough to try a word search, they would figure it out within minutes—Fred and I on the other hand, weren't nearly so good at that kind of thing. I hadn't seen any of the boys in the common room, but I checked the Map there anyways, thinking that perhaps they had disguised themselves. Unfortunately for me, it was the first day of the term. There were no clubs starting this soon and very little homework had been assigned which meant that nearly every Gryffindor was congregated in the common room. With so many little dots running 'round and their names all overlapping, I couldn't make out anything. The other common rooms, though I doubted the boys would hide out in any of those, were just the same; too crowded to make out anything.

Instead, I checked everywhere else. They weren't in the library, they weren't in the kitchens, they weren't in the Great Hall, the dungeons, the secret passages, or any teacher's office. So I extended my search outside the castle walls. They weren't by the lake, they weren't in the passage under the Whomping Willow (they had yet to figure out how), they weren't by the Forbidden Forest. I was running out of ideas when finally, I saw three dots on the Quidditch pitch: _Fred Weasley, George Weasley,_ and _Lee Jordan._

"There you are," I muttered to myself with an eye roll. Because _of course_ they were on the Quidditch pitch. "Bloody morons," I added.

 _"Monsieur Padfoot, est surpris par un tel langage laide d'une si jolie fille."_ [1]

"What?" I asked stupidly. What was this gibberish?

 _"Monsieurs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot et Prongs nous voulons simplement parler votre langue , cher."_ [2]

"I don't get it," I huffed impatiently. I needed to get going or boys would get bored and leave.

 _"Mister Moony never agreed to this plan and thinks his companions are being idiotic."_

 _"Monsieur Prongs sait voilà juste parce que Monsieur Moony ne parle pas beaucoup le français comme MM Prongs & Padfoot font."_ [3]

 _"Monsieur Wormtail accepte."_ [4]

"Mister Moony, what are they talking about?" I sighed.

 _"Mister Moony's pathetic friends are speaking French. They think Miss_ French _should understand them."_ I rolled my eyes. For possibly ancient men, the Marauders were extremely immature.

"No one in my family has spoken French in generations," I informed them and closed the Map with, "Mischief Managed," before they could respond. To get to the boys out on the Quidditch field, I had to pass through the common room and it wouldn't do for anyone to see the Map open. After cutting through the crowd of Gryffindors in the common room and throwing another dirty look at the three little first years, I pushed open the portrait and stepped back into the corridor. Jogging away towards the stairs, I ignored the Fat Lady's grumbling that she'd best not see me again.

Perhaps I should have gone slower and kept the Map open. Maybe then, I wouldn't have run right into Professor Lockhart as he was coming around a corner. "Whoa there," he said with a much-too-wide grin. "Who might you be?"

"Skylar French, sir. I'm sorry for running into you." _Please don't give me detention._

"And where are you off to in such a hurry, Miss French? One might think you were running from trouble!" _To trouble, actually_ , I thought with a tiny smile.

"Sorry, sir," I apologized as I attempted to sidestep him, but he just blocked my way. "I'm looking for my friends," I added trying to express to him politely that I had places to be. He misunderstood.

"Oh, my dear girl. _Everyone_ deserves a friend. I am certain there is one out there for you, maybe even two or three." My mouth hung open in shock and offense. "In fact," he added, chucking my chin with his index finger—I leaned away—"I consider _us_ friends."

"Uh…."

"And who better could you ask for as a friend than an internationally famous wizard with an Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary membership in the Dark Force Defense League and the five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award." _Anyone else!_ I mentally screamed.

"Um, actually, uh, _Professor_ ," the title did not fit this man; it belonged to someone collected, like Professor McGonagall, not… _this._ "My friends, you haven't seen them around have you? Two identical redheads and a black boy?" I meant for these descriptions to express to him that, yes, I did actually have friends and _no,_ I didn't need his 'friendship'.

Again, he misunderstood. I had hear a rumor that he had been a Ravenclaw when he attended Hogwarts as a student, but with how obtuse he was, I thought I must have heard wrong. "Ah, Sarah," he sighed as he clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah."

"Skylar, actually."

"You cannot be so picky when making friends. Someday, maybe, if you ever gain the kind of popularity _I_ have," he should his head with a chuckle as if this possibility amused him, "you will be able to have whichever friends you like, but until then, you've got to just take what you can get." I tried to pull out from under his hand, but it was surprisingly firm. "Be patient and _someday_ …." He trailed off as if to be dramatic.

"Great," I snapped, done with him. "I've got to go. They're waiting for me on the Quidditch pitch."

"Yes, yes, you may indeed make pals on the Quidditch field." Repulsed and irritated, I started walking away without responding. "Remember what I said," he called as I scurried away.

"Yeah, right," I muttered glad to be out of the charlatan's reach.

When I finally reached the Quidditch pitch, I looked around in confusion. I couldn't see the boys anywhere. Even rarer, I couldn't hear them anywhere. _I took too long; they must have left_ , I assumed with some annoyance. _Curse Lockhart_. I pulled out the Map again, muttering the necessary words and ignoring Messrs. Prongs, Padfoot and Wormtail's unreadable French, began searching again for my friends' dots. When I found them, I was confused. There was my dot on the edge of the field and there were three more dots in the center of the field, labeled _Fred Weasley, George Weasley and Lee Jordan_ , all running around, alternately circling and chasing each other. I looked across the field, but it was still empty, nothing more than a breeze running through. I considered for a moment that they had finally figured out the Disillusionment charms, but that wasn't right—even then there would have been shadows on the grass. And then I realized there _were_ shadows in the grass, just…not from the angle I was expecting. I looked up to see three grinning boys all looping through the air on their broomsticks. When they saw that I had finally found them, they broke their unusual silence and cheered.

"About bloody time!" Lee called down, diving towards me before flying around me in a close circle. I held the Map tight and tried to see the others through my hair; the air moved around me like I was in the midst of a twister. "What took you so long," he laughed drifting away.

"Our Yankee's losing her touch," Fred mocked, coming out a loop and hovering next to Lee.

"You lot forgot to give me y'all's password," I griped back with my hands on my hips. "I was sitting out in the corridor for half an hour!"

"Is that all?" George asked, swooping past me and snatching the Map from my now loose hand. He joined his brother and Lee, all of them just out of reach. I scowled at him.

" _No_ ," I insisted. "I ran into Lockhart in the hall too. He decided to have a heart-to-heart."

"About what?" George probed with a grin as he closed the Map and slipped it into the pocket of his robes. I watched the parchment disappear with disappointment. I grimaced, only half because of Lockhart.

"He misunderstood when I said I was looking for my friends. He thought I meant that I didn't have any friends." The boys laughed uproariously and I scowled again. "It's _not_ funny."

"Ah, so sad for our little lonely Slytherin," Fred laughed and I stuck my tongue out at him. Without warning he circled around behind me, snatching something off the ground from behind me and I threw up my hands reflexively when he tossed it my way. I hadn't noticed the broomstick when it way in the grass, but with it in my hands, I gulped. It was one thing to fly around the backyard at the Burrow, but I wasn't keen to fly at school. I still wobbled on broomsticks and I didn't need anyone here to see that.

"Come on, Yankee!" Lee called. "Don't be a wimp!" My back straightened and my brows furrowed when he attacked my pride so, glancing around for potential witnesses and seeing none besides my infuriating friends, I conceded defeat. I mounted the broom and straddled it uncomfortably before looking back to my friends. I started climbing through the air towards them where they hovered about twenty feet up, but I paused halfway there. I rarely ever went higher than that where I floated. It wasn't that I was afraid of heights, in fact, I enjoyed sitting on rooftops and in trees, but I _was_ afraid of falling. It wasn't an issue when I stayed on something sturdy and steady, but broomsticks fit neither of those descriptions. So I preferred to stay at a level where falling wouldn't cause too serious of an injury.

The boys weren't going to let me leave it there though.

"Come on!" they called down to me from where they hovered. Taking a deep breath, I tilted my broomstick upwards and hesitantly continued ascending. However, when I was about fifteen feet above the grass, I looked up to see that the boys were higher than they had been before. For every foot I rose, they rose two. I paused to consider my options. I could leave, I could stay exactly where I was or I could continue upwards.

Leaving, I decided, would look too much like I was throwing a tantrum. Staying, however, would lead to more wheedling and whining on the part of the boys above me and unfortunately, I knew I was more likely to give in than they were which meant I would end up taking the third option in the end. To save time, I decided to give in immediately.

"Stay there!" I commanded and, still shaking, but moving more quickly than before, I rose to their level. They had slipped up a few more feet, despite my directions. When I finally reached them, we were even with the hoops of the goalposts at either end of the field. "I hate you all," I informed the as I gripped the handle of my broomstick with white knuckles.

"Ah!" Fred and George cried as if it pain. Lee laughed while George clutched his chest and Fred sagged on his broomstick. "We're wounded, French," Fred groaned.

"No, you're not," I smiled, laughing until it caused my broomstick to shudder beneath me. My whole body stiffened as I concentrated on not falling to my death.

"You've got to move around," George reminded me. "It'll steady the broomstick—they're meant to be flown, not hovered."

"I know, I know," I said, slowly moving forward, the boys moving along with me. I had been given the same direction dozens of times over the summer. I still don't know why the concept was so difficult a concept for me to grasp. It wasn't any different from riding a bicycle.

We flew around the Quidditch pitch a few times, the boys flying ahead of me, and I thought we were done when they began to slow. I was wrong. "Let's go!" Fred called as he flew over the spectators' stands and out of the pitch, the others flying after him quickly. I groaned quietly, but followed. My broomstick was no longer shaking, but I still gripped it tightly, hanging on for dear life. Fred led us towards the castle until we flew parallel to the walls, so close that, had I not been holding on for dear life, I could have reached out and touch the weathered and ancient stones. Flying so close, we could see through the windows we passed, getting snapshots of the goings on inside. There, in the Great Hall, house elves were cleaning and preparing for dinner. There, in his office, Lockhart was combing his hair and winking at himself in the mirror. There, in the library, an auburn haired boy was snogging a blond girl behind the bookshelves. There, in Dumbledore's office, his pet phoenix, Fawks, was preening on his bird-stand. We were circling the castle, rising higher and higher and I was finally getting comfortable on my broomstick when we came to an abrupt halt, suspended above the Astronomy Tower.

I could see _everything_.

The Quidditch pitch that we had just left was looking more tranquil than I had ever imagined it could. There were no cheering fans, not darting players, no bludgers creating chaos. Nothing there moved except for the flags topping the stands.

On the opposite side, the Forbidden Forest curled around the castle and the Black Lake. Both the forest and the lake held a plethora of terrifying creatures, the idea of which effectively kept me out, unless accompanied by my friends. For the moment though, both were beautiful. The waves on the lake glittered benignly and the leaves on the trees swayed soothingly. Hogsmeade was visible down the slope, the postcard-perfect village putting on in its autumn best. Even the hills behind the village, pockmarked with caves, looked invitingly peaceful. I would have been content to stay in that spot for hours, even on a rickety broom.

Of course, though, the boys had other plans. "Are we ready, then?" George asked with the usual mischievous lilt in his voice. I hadn't realized that flying—and terrifying me in the process—wasn't the point of the excursion. I followed the boys down onto the balcony of the Astronomy Tower, stowing my broom with the others against the half-wall while Lee unlocked the window with a simple 'Alohamora'.

"So what are we doing?" I asked as Fred and George emptied their pockets onto Professor Sinistra's rarely used desk. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the objects on the desk were ink wells. Though I preferred pens to quills, inkwells littered the school and, in fact, a wizarding gathering place. These inkwells, however, were not the plain black, anti-shatter jars that were standard among the other students. These were made of a very pretty porcelain and had small designs painted all the way around. "Where did you get them?" I asked, picking one up to inspect the designs closer.

"Found them in the linen closet at home," George grinned. "Mum said we could have them?"

"The linen closet?" I raised an eyebrow at him. The Burrow was hectic, so it was completely possible that he was telling me the truth, but by the wink he sent me, I couldn't be sure he was telling the truth. Fred's expression didn't give anything away either. It irked me. "So, what are we doing with it?"

Fred took the inkwell from me, unscrewed the lid and passed it back. "We're in the Astronomy Tower. What do you think we're going to do, Yankee?" Before I answered his question, I looked into the little jar I held in my hand and found myself mesmerized with what I found inside. The ink was a dark, dark blue, just a shade away from black, and pockets of silver and gold flecks swirled through the fluid ink. It looked like the little jar contained an entire universe—maybe it did.

"Hmmm," I hummed in appreciation of the ink before remembering that Fred had asked me a question. I scrambled for an answer. Looking around the sunlit, but mostly bare classroom, I considered a range of possibilities. Write on the walls, rig the pots to pour ink on anyone who entered the room. But those could be done anywhere; there would have been no reason for us to fly all the way up to the astronomy tower. I knew the second my eyes landed on their intended targets. "The telescopes," I said confidently.

"Precisely," Fred nodded with an approving smile. "Now, everyone take two and let's get to work." We spread out across the classroom quickly, all setting to work. Students all owned our own telescopes, of course, but the contraptions are finicky things. They would break regularly when we were not careful with them and even when they are working properly, they were not always strong enough to see all the constellations Professor Sinistra wanted us to see, especially in the more advanced classes. For those reasons, Professor Sinistra kept a classroom set handy. She would lend them to students when needed and, if your telescope was broken, quite often she would fix it for you and return it by the end of the week with the instructions to be more careful. She was a kind witch and a good teacher who made the potentially monotonous, late night class interesting enough to easily keep us awake, sometimes even using humor, an appreciated tactic. I worried for a moment about pranking her class, but remembered that several times the previous year, I had seen her press her lips together, holding back smiles and laughs when she observed the effects of some of our other pranks. With this reassurance, I followed the boys' lead.

Using our fingers, we painted both the eye lenses and the objective lenses of each telescope with the ink. While the boys shlopped the ink onto the lenses with two fingers, usually leaving a lovely trail of ink of the floor as well, I was a more conservative with my vandalism, restraining the ink to the glass alone. I couldn't blame the boys, after all, we each had two whole jars to use up. However, I quietly slipped my second jar into the large pocket of my robes. The ink was gorgeous, even if I wasn't usually fond of quills, and I was sure I could find a good use for it.

When we stood back to admire our work, each telescope looked like it had been stuffed with a cylinder of universe, the glitter giving us new and unknown constellations that just ached to be explored. So realistic was it that I looked forward to seeing reactions, though likely, the first wouldn't be in my class seeing as I didn't have Astronomy until the beginning of the next week.

"We'd best get going, then," Lee motioned us to follow him back out to the balcony. While Fred locked the window back up and we all mounted our broomsticks, I secretly patted the little jar in my pocket before following my friends back into the air. The descent back towards the Quidditch pitch was a bit more frightening than the ascent had been and I kept worrying about sliding off the front of my broom. I finally understood why Harry had been taken on as Gryffindor's Seeker just because McGonagall saw him pull of a great dive during his first lesson. I wasn't even diving and I was terrified. We landed safely on the grass though and after Lee and I put the school brooms we had been borrowing back in the broom shed, we walked back up to the castle, happy with our success. Later that evening, after dinner, I removed the inkwell from my pocket and set it on the shelf next to my bed. Two of my own inky fingerprints were there, but they only added to the beauty of the bottle, so I never bothered to wash them off.

[1] "Mister Padfoot is surprised at such ugly language from such a pretty girl.

[2] "Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs just want to speak your language, dear."

[3] "Mr. Prongs knows that's just because Mr. Moony does not speak as much French as Messrs. Padfoot & Prongs do."

[4] "Mister Wormtail agrees."

* * *

A/N: I do not speak French, so this was Google Translate all the way. If you speak French and see the need to correct me, please do. It'd be much appreciated.

A/N2: Alas, classes are back in session so I won't have nearly so much time to devote to writing. I should still be able to update at least once a week, probably on weekends mostly, so please don't think I've suddenly abandoned anything.


	7. Occasional Explosions

Forgive me, my dears. As Guest reviewer, Maria pointed out, I said I would update every week or so and it's been more than a month and a half now. I'm sorry! I've had a lovely combination of writer's block (fickle muse!), computer issues, midterms and a lovely roommate who started me on no less than five animes (she got me into the genre and now we can be nutty together). While I won't promise anything, because we know how that went last time, I should be up and running again and able to post at least semi-regularly. Wish me luck and enjoy this chapter.

We underestimated Professor Sinistra's adoration of her precious telescopes just a bit. None of us pranksters were present at the discovery, but rumor was she swore vengeance on the culprit or culprits. That vengeance would take the form of a minimum of three weeks detention and forty house points. Anyone with even a bit of information about the crime was given five house points and extra credit. No one could prove it of course, but plenty of fingers were pointed our way. Professor Sinistra took to quizzing all four of us on subjects we couldn't possibly be expected to know and docking house points when we couldn't answer correctly. The boys responded to this unfairness by shrugging it off. I, on the other hand, threw myself into studying up on astronomy. As a result, my grade skyrocketed and when she realized that baiting me only made me succeed more, she laid off. After some time, I did too, though I stayed in one of the top three spots from then on.

My performance rose in Transfiguration as well, though for a different reason entirely. Serving as a TA gave me the opportunity to brush up on first and second year material and to learn material from the more advanced years, both of which boosted my own work. I interacted with every grade on some level. I was in the classroom with first, fourth and seventh years and assisted with grading for all years. For first and fourth years, I assisted with practical spellwork, walking though the class and helping when they struggled, just like Professor McGonagall did. The first years were easy. This early in the year, they needed help pronouncing the incantations and figuring the wand movements more than anything. Small adjustments like that brought out successful spells and it was entertaining watching their faces fill with the wonder of " _look what I did!"_ The fourth years though were another story. First off, the magic was more advanced and there were gaps between my level and theirs. I spent most nights studying to close that gap and practicing the spells that they would be learning the following week. As a consequence, I became the top of my year in Transfiguration. However, dealing with the fourth years was far more annoying.

The fourth years took offense to having a third year help them. They demanded that I prove that I had the proper skills, but even so, most refused my assistance. Only after a stern lecture from Professor McGonagall and a series of covert hexes from the twins did they all allow me to help them, aside from one very stubborn Ravenclaw.

However, I was no help with the seventh years. Even attempting their spells resulted in a depressing lack of reaction or a heart-stopping explosion. Lee noted that if we could channel the explosions into the candy, we would make millions; I threatened to try a spell on him until he ran away. So during the seventh years' class period, McGonagall gave me a stack of essays and rubrics and set me to grading. The material came from all different levels and I was able to learn a bit every time.

Detentions with Snape continued much as they had at the end of the previous year. I was put work with short orders and then promptly ordered to get out when my work was completed. For the most part, during those detentions, he ignored me aside from the usual snide insults. It was almost easy. Easier, at least, than dealing with some other Slytherins I knew.

Most of the Slytherins knew me well enough by now. My uniqueness as the muggleborn in Slytherin house had caught everyone's attention. I had, for the first while at least, been relentlessly and cruelly bullied. However, I had earned myself respect which meant something to Slytherins. Unfortunately, they seemed to have forgotten that respect over the summer. They returned to the castle with the sneers, taunts and slurs. A very specific slur in fact: _mudblood._ I ignored them, to a point. My friends were with me, of course. Isaac, Justin and Terence stood by me against every taunt. Joshua was there too, on the edges, looking on. Thinking back, he looked stuck, like he was dangling on an edge. At first, I was mad about how he never spoke up, but he looked so _sad_. I started to pity him. But then, one evening in the common room, the taunts from turned to hexes.

There was a first year, a little pureblood who had been groomed to believe that only those of status were of any value and that those who were not like him were worthless. After several weeks of practicing, he had figured out a jinx to make my ears grow long, like a goblin's, and he bravely shot it at me from ten feet away. It hurt, and I shrieked at him as my ears lengthened into pointed tips. While I clapped my hands over the sides of my face, my friends jumped forward with their wands raised at the obstinate little boy. It wasn't any of the three boys I had been sitting with that fired the hex that made a welt blossom against the kid's unmarked skin. It was the one who had been sitting halfway across the common room, the one who had been avoiding my gaze for the last three weeks. "Learn your place, kiddo," he scowled, standing in front of me and blocking my view of the first year. Without another word to anyone, he dropped his stuff next to me on the couch, took a seat and started back on his homework. "Did you get the fourth question?" he looked up at Justin.

"Er, yeah." And that was it. Joshua was back with us and acting like he had the year before, for the most part. He was still distant from time to time and there was an unspoken agreement not to speak about his home. We respected his privacy and he relaxed, even when we weren't looking. However, as Joshua drew closer, someone else started drifting.

"Ginny!" I called across the corridor. Her head turned to me slowly and she gave me a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She didn't move toward me, but she didn't leave either as I approached her. The month of school seemed to have already put a good deal of distance between us. I worried that the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry had drawn her in, but when I brought up my worries to the twins one evening in their common room, her brothers told me she had been keeping everyone at a distance. Percy, who had wandered over during our discussion, suggested that she was ill.

"The common cold is sweeping through the school," he said. "I'll have her go get a Pepper Up potion from Madam Pomphrey in the morning." Ginny was not amenable to this idea. In the end, Percy had to practically drag her the entire way to the Hospital Wing while she protested the entire way that she was perfectly fine. Due to the effects of the potion, she had steam spewing from her ears for the rest of the day and I heard several people comment, quite accurately, that in combined with her red hair, it looked like her whole head was on fire. Her mutinous expression didn't help matters and anyone who caught her eye looked away quickly as if she had burned them.

"She won't talk to us," George told me that evening.

"She won't talk to anyone," Fred added. "Could you try?"

"She might listen to you—"

"—being a girl and all."

I agreed to try, though I'm not sure what we all expected to happen. Ginny was a stubborn girl, always had been if her brothers told any truth, and if she didn't want to tell you something, she wouldn't.

And she very much did not want to tell me anything.

I went up to her dormitory that evening, entering without knocking since the door had been left slightly ajar. "Hey, Ginny," I announced myself, trying to sound bright and unworried. She had been writing and she snapped her little diary closed as soon as she heard my voice, looking up to scowl at me. The steam really did make her look like she was just a word away from exploding. I was sure I would not escape that sort of incident unscathed.

"What do you need, Skylar?" she asked deadpanned.

"Uh, the boys asked me to check on you," I transferred the responsibility for this potentially disastrous talk off of myself, hoping she wouldn't hex her brothers in their sleep. "They said you haven't been feeling too well lately."

"I'm fine," she snapped and I took a step back. She looked surprised at my reaction and her face softened. "Sorry," she said, "but I really am fine. You can tell all of them to back off a bit."

"Will do," I said, risking taking a few more steps into the room. "Do you mind if I stay up here for a bit anyways so Percy doesn't blame me too much though?" She considered for a moment before nodding that I could stay. "Thanks." I settled on one of the currently empty beds while she returned to writing in her little diary. What was she writing so desperately in there that she couldn't tell anyone else? "Are…classes going alright?" I asked after searching for something to say. She looked at me oddly, not closing the little black book.

"Classes are fine," she said.

"Good." I wracked my brain for something else to say. "Have you been making friends alright?" She looked at me with an annoyed expression, but I didn't retract the question.

"We get along fine," she said in a clipped tone, "but they're all silly and trivial. I swear, none of them have a single intelligent idea in their heads." Well, that's rather harsh, I thought. True, perhaps, but harsh. And Ginny, though a confident and resolved girl, was not harsh.

"Well, you should give them more of a chance," I said. "They're only eleven. They'll mature. Besides, there's no way you've met every single first year in the whole school."

"I don't have to meet all of them to know that none of them are worth my time," she snapped. I raised my eyebrows.

"How…Slytherin." She shrugged and my eyebrows rose to somewhere around my hairline. As similar as we could be, Gryffindors _hated_ being described as Slytherin, and vice versa. It was one of the easiest ways I had found to irritate either group, often irritating them both simultaniously. But Ginny didn't care. And unfortunately, I knew her nonchalance was not a result of successfully avoiding the Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry. She had been raised in a family of Gryffindors and had six brothers who had taught her all about the horrors of Slytherin from the time she could talk. She and the rest of them might have accepted me as a relatively non-evil Slytherin, but that didn't mean they hadn't each ridiculed me for my house at least once over the summer. Even Ginny had taken part in the gentle jibing, despite the fact that she had yet to attend Hogwarts. Yet here she was, shrugging off the word like it didn't matter. It was eerie.

When I stepped back into the Gryffindor common room after speaking to Ginny, Fred, George and Lee were pouring over books, researching explosions, still working on our exploding candy. "Find anything?" I asked, slumping next to Lee.

"Not yet," he said. "Most of these would maim or kill the eater."

"Might be good for a weapons shop, but not a joke shop," Fred said, closing the book on his lap and stretching before pulling a new volume towards him. "Is Ginny feeling better?" he added while browsing the table of contents.

"I don't think so."

"Maybe she's just homesick," George suggested, his forehead wrinkled lightly with brotherly concern.

"Maybe that's it," I agreed, though I doubted it.

"We'll write to Mum and Dad about it," Fred said. "They'd know best how to help. After all, they've had all of the rest of us to deal with."

"Were you two homesick when you came to Hogwarts?" I asked, the idea of melancholy twins foreign to me.

"Of course not!"  
"Never!"

"They moped for two weeks," Lee smirked.

"We did not!"

"Lies!" I laughed, tension from my visit with Ginny dissolving. "Percy was the mopey one," George continued to defend himself and his twin.

"Bill wrote home every couple days for a month too," Fred added.

"Sure he did," Lee grinned. "Skylar, what do you think about this potion?" he asked, changing the subject and directing me to read the section on crackling potions.

The final difference between this year and the last was, unfortunately, Defense Against the Dark Arts. Quirrell may have been evil and Voldemort may have been hiding under his turban, but at least he knew how to teach. I almost missed his stutter when compared to Lockhart's utter idiocy. He had no idea what he was doing. The first day had included a test about what we might have picked up from his books which he expected we must have been avidly reading over summer vacation. Since I hadn't yet read any of his books, when he passed out the packets of parchment, I figured I would fail. When I read the questions, I knew I would fail. Not a single question had been about something we could be expected to use in our lives, unless we planned on starting the Hogwarts chapter of the Gilderoy Lockhart Fan Club. Each and every question was about Lockhart—his likes and dislikes. There was even a question about his dating history, the answer to which he later told us could be found in chapter seven of _Break with a Banshee_. Personally, I had only tried to answer the first page of question, resorting to doodling over the rest. Sometimes, the doodle related to the question. Sometimes, it didn't.

"Miss French," he tsked as he collected the tests. "Perhaps a bit more focus next time, yes?"

"Yes, sir," I said innocently, swatting my snickering friends when Lockhart turned away.

After that quiz, things only got worse. Word was, the first class he had had was the second years and he had brought Cornish pixies into the class, releasing the little troublemakers to wreak havoc on the room. He had been unable to control them and had ended up running out of class with the rest of the students. Colin Creevey had gotten a picture of Lockhart with his hair frazzled and his cheeks red. I paid the kid five sickles for the picture and spell-o-taped it to the inside of _Holidays with Hags_. It was a blessing when he was getting particularly annoying during class.

Since that very first class, he preferred to teach theoretic material. That is, if it could be considered teaching. He acted out his books with gusto, choosing a student at random to act as whichever creature he was besting. After the third time of being called to act as the banshee, I took to hiding in the back of the classroom. It had only taken a few weeks for nearly all the boys and most of the girls to be disillusioned about Lockhart's 'great' experience and only the most infatuated of the girls remained in the first few rows of desks. After another couple weeks, no one with any intelligence really paid attention to his words and as long as we pretended to pay attention to his theatrics, he didn't seem to care. A few Ravenclaws, all of whom were repentant for having boasted that Lockhart belonged to their house, started a study group. That study group was the only reason anyone learned Defense Against the Dark Arts. During class, notes were passed and we all played grand games of Hangman. After class, we gathered to practice spells and learn their uses. Within a month, we were all more adept than our teacher was. A group of fifth and seventh years who were studying for their OWLs and NEWTs that year went to Dumbledore about the issue and asked if there was _anyone_ else who could teach the class. They reported that the headmaster just smiled and promised that everything would pan out eventually.

Somehow, I doubted that would happen without a few helpful explosions.

And I was just getting good at those.

I know, I know, it's mostly a filler chapter, but next up is Halloween. And that's when things get really _fun…_


	8. A Halloween Scare

So, it's Halloween at Hogwarts and this one is going to be…worrying. If you're following my story _This Grimmauld Place_ , you'll see a _huge_ point. If you haven't read that, then it won't seem as important yet, but it will in another chapter or two. Alright, read on.

* * *

Halloween approached with startling swiftness and before I had time to think about it, the Great Hall was being filled with giant pumpkins and the suits of armor were whispering to one another in the corridors. My fellow third years couldn't stop whispering either. The year's first trip to Hogwarts was planned for Halloween and this would be the first time most of them had ever been to the little town. "You have to show us where all the good places are!" Terence ordered a few days before the outing. I reminded myself that, as far as they knew, I had only been there once.

"What makes you think I know where all the good places are?" I asked innocently. "I only went the one time."

"Yeah," he agreed, "but you went with the Weasley twins. Gryffindor aside, they know where to get the good stuff." I smiled a small smile and nodded. How could I say no?

The Gryffindors had other ideas though. "We'll meet you in the Entrance Hall, right?" Lee checked two days before the trip.

"Probably," I said, "but I already promised Terence that I would show them around the village so I can't follow you lot around."

"What?" Fred and George sounded upset. "But we need to go talk to Ambrosius!" Ambrosius Flume and his wife owned Honeydukes. I had forgotten about our research.

"They want to go to the Shrieking Shack so I'll just meet you at Honeydukes then," I said. "Say, around two?" The Gryffindors grumbled that they shouldn't have to wait for a bunch of _Slytherins_ , but agreed when I glared at them.

Finally, the day of the trip arrived. After being checked off Filch's list, my Slytherin friends all raced down the path. I tried to keep up with them, but gave up. Their legs were longer and they were all better runners. Rebelliously, I walked—no I leisurely strolled—down the path. They doubled back when they realized I wasn't with them and urged me to hurry, but I refused. "We've got all day," I said. "Take your time." After much grumbling, they slowed their feet to walk with me.

"Honeydukes first!" Terence cried when we reached the edge of town.

"No, we've got to go to Zonko's!" Joshua argued.

"The Three Broomsticks!" Justin popped up. The three of them gabbled together and I watched them, entertained.

"What do you think, Isaac?" Out of the five of us, Isaac was always the quiet one, but he was also always right. He would watch an argument potentially for days before choosing a side or deciding to stay out of it altogether. During that waiting period, he weighed the pros and cons of each side, watched all players involved, and found their strengths, weaknesses and pressure points. If and when he chose a side, he always chose the winning side.

"I don't mind," he said, watching the others as we walked. "Where do you want to go?"

"I've been to all of them so it doesn't matter to me. You choose." He gave me an odd look that I couldn't decipher, but before I could ask him about it, he cleared his expression with a smile and looked away.

"Alright then," he said. "Honeydukes, then Zonko's, then The Three Broomsticks." He was decisive as if he had thought it all through from every side. Knowing him, he had. After attaining the others' agreement, we set off.

Through all our stops during the day, and we made plenty, we were met with swarms of students and the smiles of store owners. "Try these out, Skylar," Mr. Zonko said throwing a couple extra things into my bag when I came to his register. "They're some new products I'm working on. Share with those boys of yours and tell me what you all think."

As we walked away, Terence leaned over. "This isn't just the second time you've been to Hogsmeade, is it?" he accused. I opened my eyes wide and tried to adopt an innocent expression. Unfortunately for me, my friends knew me far too well for my patented get-out-of-jail-free face to work.

I did my best to ignore Terence's wheedling attempts to make me confess as we approached the crowded pub and ended up ordering him off to find us a table just to get some breathing room. Justin and Joshua followed him while Isaac and I went to the bar to get the drinks. "Skylar," Madam Rosmerta smiled when I was finally able to catch her attention. I ignored Isaac's arched eyebrow and ordered us five butterbeers.

"You've only been to Hogsmeade once, have you?" he asked with a knowing grin.

"Shut up," I growled, and instead watching Rosmerta as she returned with our drinks on a tray.

"There you are, Skylar," she said with a smile and I silently cursed her for using my name continuously. The familiar habit probably set most of her patrons at ease, but it was messing up my already fraying lie. "Where are those redheaded rogues of yours?" she added, making it all the worse. She hadn't noticed Isaac, nor his triumphant smile, at my side and I wished she would go finish serving her other guests.

"They're around town somewhere," I said. "This is Isaac Willworth," I added and the boy in question nodded politely to the pretty bartender.

"It's nice to meet you, Isaac," she smiled at him. "Take good care of our girl and keep her out of trouble, will you?" She gave us a wink before turning away to take an old warlock's order so she didn't hear Isaac's response.

"I don't think I could if I tried," he said and took the large tray out of my hands, ignoring my protests. "So," he asked as we started in the general direction we had seen the others go. "How many times have you been to Hogsmeade?"

"Once," I stubbornly lied.

"We both know that isn't true," he grinned, but I ignored him. It was several minutes and two near-toppled trays later that we found the other three wedged into booth by the window.

"What took so long?" Terence complained as we passed out the butterbeers.

"There's a lot of people here," I said before Isaac could mention Rosmerta, shooting him a glare. He remained obediently silent and covered his annoying smirk by tanking a sip from his pint. The pub was warm and within minutes we had all shed our cloaks and scarves. We found that we were loath to return to the crisp autumn breeze outside and decided to stay for a while, Joshua and Justin getting up to order us lunch and another round of butterbeers at some point.

"You know," Isaac said suddenly while we were eating. "We met you exactly a year ago."

"That's true," I realized remembering when Isaac had chased me down in the hall after class. "You wanted to know if I had had anything to do with that breakfast prank earlier in the year." I had been on my way to one of the secret passages leading from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade and had thought for a moment that he knew my plan and was going to turn me in.

"We never did get a straight answer about that," Justin complained, but I just grinned. For several minutes after, they continued to try to tease the answer out of me until I turned succeeded in turned the subject. I was listening while they discussed the upcoming Quidditch match. It was Gryffindor versus Slytherin and we were sure to win. They might have had Harry Potter, but we had seven brand new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones for our team to ride. Draco Malfoy had taken Terence's spot as Seeker on the Quidditch team. Terence had been glaring daggers at the kid for the last two months, but he was at least glad that we had a guaranteed win. Even I was happy about it and I really didn't care much for sports. I was however looking forward to having something to lord over Oliver Wood. No matter how loudly the twins had complained when they found out about the Slytherin team's new additions.

I was letting myself imagine how angry Wood would be and wondering if his face would change color when three loud bangs interrupted the boys' discussion. We looked towards the window to see Fred, George and Lee standing there, George's fist still raised. Fred pointed to me and then made a motion with his thumb, clearly indicating that I was to come outside _now_. "One minute," I said, holding up a finger and hoping they could read lips.

Fred was already shaking his head and pointing at his wrist with an irritated expression. I looked towards the clock on the pub wall and swore when I saw that I was indeed late. "I've got to go, see you back at the castle," I told the others, jumping up from my seat and throwing my cloak and scarf back on. Shoving through the crush of the crowd, I ran out to the road where the three Gryffindors were waiting. "Sorry, sorry," I apologized when I stumbled to a stop in front of Fred, George and Lee.

"You're late," they said.

"I know, I'm sorry. I lost track of time." George tsked and Fred motioned for us to follow him to the shop. We had written in advance, setting up this little meeting so when we waved to Mr. Flume working behind the counter, he whispered something to his wife before letting us all into the little office in the back.

"Sorry, we're late," I said.

"Yeah, _someone_ didn't show up on time," Lee grinned.

"We won't name names, of course," Fred added.

"She's here now and that's what's important," George grinned. I scowled at them, but Mr. Flume just laughed.

"No matter," he said. "What can I help you kids with?" he asked. We went through, explaining our idea, the problems we were having and how we thought he could help us. Halfway through the discussion, he went back up to the main part of the shop and came back with their famous, Exploding Bon-bons. "Well, I can't tell you exactly how to make the hard candy, but I can tell you what we do," he said when we had finished. He explained the potion that they infused the chocolate with outlining its properties, eccentricities, and troubles they had with it in the beginning. By the time we left, each with a complimentary box of the bon-bons, we felt like we had hit the jackpot. As the bell above the door chimed our exit, he called that he would be interested to see the finished product if we were successful. I silently objected to that 'if'. Of course we'll succeed, I thought.

Evening had fallen while we had talked to Mr. Flume and there were only a few straggling students who hadn't returned to the castle yet, mostly couples, reluctant to end their dates. We ended up just behind a particularly cuddly couple and were all four gagging at their displays the entire walk to the castle. I knew the girl was a Ravenclaw prefect, but from the angle we were at, we couldn't get a good look at the guy who kept a cap covering his ears and face. Finally, when we reached the castle, the couple split as if they hardly knew one another and made their way up the stairs. The boys opted to use a secret passage, just in case the couple started snogging again. I, however, started down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Fred demanded.

"I've got to put away my stuff," I said, indicating the Zonko's and Honeydukes bags on my arm which had been growing heavier and heavier during the walk.

"Fine," they grumbled and continued up the stairs, betting one another who could blow the biggest bubbles with Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. I reached my, thankfully empty, dormitory and began packing my things away before looking around in confusion. Something was missing and for a moment, I couldn't figure out what. It was only when Gus hopped up onto the bed, walking across an unfinished essay that I realized my schoolbag was nowhere to be seen. I pawed through the unmade sheets, looked under the bed, checked my trunk, even searched around Tatiana and Lucille's beds, but it wasn't anywhere in the room. I sat on the bed, stumped. I hadn't been to the library in days so it couldn't be there and I remembered having it after dinner the evening before. And then it dawned on me as clear and crisp as taking a dip in the Black Lake in the middle of February.

I had left my bag at detention the evening before. In Snape's office.

Merlin, help me.

I had forty-five minutes until the Halloween Feast was set to start. I had plenty of time to grab it, I was sure, but the idea of disturbing Professor Snape was an unpleasant one to contemplate. I could just leave it until class, but it had textbooks in it that I needed for a Charms essay. I could wait until tomorrow morning, but that was a Sunday and Snape was known to be particularly nasty to students who disrupted his 'day off'. Not that tonight would be better. Finally, I decided to go real quick, before the feast. With any luck, Snape wouldn't be in his office. In fact, there was always the chance that he was still in Hogsmeade. The thought of him in Honeydukes, surrounded by hundreds of pastel-wrapped candies, was enough to make me snort and calm my nerves.

Pausing outside his door, I listened for some sort of movement from within, but could hear nothing. There was no clinking of vials being moved around the shelves, no grumbling as he graded essays, not even the sound of a fire burning. I knocked so timidly it hardly made any noise at all. But, I reasoned with my hand over the handle, this was Snape. He could read minds. Surely he knew when someone was standing outside his door. So, throwing caution to the wind I turned the handle and pushed the door open. And was faced with possibly, the most mind boggling, heart wrenching, stomach turning sight I had ever seen.

Severus Snape was _crying._ He was sobbing with a hand over his mouth, his other arm wrapped around his chest and tears streaming down his cheeks as his whole body shook. I didn't like the man. I never had. But in that moment, I would have done just about anything to make _that_ stop.

That didn't also mean that when he looked up and saw me, I didn't want to run for my life.

"Help…me…" he gasped through the sobs wracking his body.

"Professor, I don't—I don't know what—" I was at a loss. How does one console someone who looked like they were being burned from within? There's no spell for than, no potion. What was I supposed to do?

"Take them. Take these…memories from me." He couldn't be asking what I thought he was. He especially couldn't be asking it of me. He hated me. Besides, I hadn't used Legilimency in more than a year and even then, the fact that it worked so well that time was a fluke. He had been the one that caught me and he had nearly murdered me for it. Then Dumbledore had expressly forbid me from using that spell ever again on any teacher or student. I couldn't just restart. _"Please!"_ The pleading broke me. I had never heard Snape say 'please' to anyone—not to students, not to faculty, not even to Dumbledore. I stepped further into the office, sitting in the chair by his desk.

"I don't know if it will work—"

"Do it!"

Uncertainly, I pulled out my wand and looked into his eyes like every piece of information I had found on the spell had instructed. I searched my memory for all the steps. Look into the subjects eyes, concentrate on his/her essence—whatever that meant—and invite their thoughts into your own mind. Lastly, the incantation: _"Legilimens!"_

I was flooded. Last year, when I had performed this same spell on this same man, I had seen images of children growing up. Severus, Lily and James Potter and James' friends. The images I saw now were worse than the bullying and the loneliness I had seen before. These images were of lives ended far before their time.

Severus was running down a street, lungs gasping, heart stuttering, towards a house blown completely apart. He was begging some ultimate power he didn't believe in, "Please let her be safe, let her be safe, let her be safe," over and over again. The younger Severus wasn't even aware of his words. He rushed through the broken gate out front and towards the open door where James Potter lay, his eyes glazed and his glasses askew and his face defiant and Severus didn't care because all he cared about was _her_ and he was still praying as he ran up the stair towards a baby's cry because if that child could still cry, _she_ might still be alive and then it wouldn't matter if he was going to prison for the rest of his life because then _she_ would still be alive and happy and he blew into the room, the epicenter of the house's destruction and there was the crying baby in the crib and there was his master's corpse and there, lying still on the floor was _her_. _She_ hadn't survived and that fact negated any good there was in the Dark Lord's fall and the safety of the rest of the wizarding world. He collapsed and crawled over to the red haired woman. His Lily. To him, she would never be Lily _Potter_ , with the name of his rival, nor would she be Lily _Evans_ , the name of the family who had not understood her as well as he had. She would forever be his Lily. He held her, weeping as much as the infant in crib. There was a bloody gash on the howling child's forehead, but Severus felt no instinct to comfort it, instead he stroked her pretty, red hair until he heard the running footsteps and ragged calls of that fool calling for his dead friend and cursing the traitor and Severus knew he could not be found there so he stood and with a last look at his Lily, he apparated away.

 _Too much, too much, too much!_ When the memory fell away, my head was pounding and I could hardly breathe. My vision was blurry around the edges and the room was tilting and what the heck was wrong with me? Severus—Snape, I reminded myself, Professor Snape—collected himself and stood while I hyperventilated. I closed my eyes, trying to push away my messed up vision and focus on one thing at a time; breathing. Breathing was important.

"Here." I opened my eyes to see him standing above me, his hand extended, offering me a small flask of something. "It will help with the headache." I took it without comment and drained it quickly having to wait only a moment for the potion to have the desired effect. The rhythm in my head dissipated, the room settled and my lungs stopped screaming of neglect.

"Thank you," I said. He nodded and took the empty bottle to the shelf, dropping it in the box that I knew from my many detentions held several dozen similar flasks. He turned and stared at me for a long moment. I thought he was going to address whatever had just happened. Perhaps he would threaten me about ever mentioning this to anyone. He said nothing. For a several minutes, we sat in total silence, staring at one another.

Finally, "Why are you in my office, Miss French?"

I scrambled, stuttering out a reply. "I—I—I forgot my bag here yesterday evening. I just came back to get it and…"

"Ah," he said, bending to retrieve something from behind his desk. "This, I assume?" He held up the bag in question and I nodded quickly.

"Yes, sir, thank you. I'm sorry for interrupting…" I wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. _I'm sorry for interrupting your crying. I'm sorry for interrupting your exceedingly depressing reminiscing._ His frown deepened and I knew that now would come the threats.

"Be more mindful of your possessions in the future, Miss French." He sounded more irritated than angry. "You had best get to the Great Hall. I believe your friends will be missing you." I glanced at the wall behind his desk and saw that indeed, the Halloween Feast had begun ten minutes ago. How had I lost so much time?

"Yes, sir," I nodded and hurried to get away from the unsettling atmosphere.

"Miss French," he called as I exited.

"Yes?"

"You are to tell _no one_ of what happened." His voice held deadly promise and I felt pure relief wash through me. There was the professor we all knew and loathed.

"Where were you?" Joshua demanded as I slipped in beside him.

"I, uh, lost track of time," I said without meeting his eye. It wasn't technically a lie and I couldn't say that I had been watching the Potions Master's darkest memory. Dinner went with its usual festive attitude this year. No one ran in screaming that a troll had come to devour us all, nothing exploded, and I was sure that it would be a nice, normal holiday. Unfortunately, though, the night did not end at dinner.

We were waddling out the Great Hall doors, just released by Dumbledore, all full and content when two Ravenclaws ran down the Grand Staircase in a panic, intercepting the now curious mass of students. Not being near the front, I couldn't hear the entire tale, but as word spread through the group, I heard snatches passed from student to student. "Mrs. Norris," "Dead," and "Potter" were prevalent. By the time word had reached us, about halfway back, the students up front had already started running and we were following, trying to overtake them.

"What's Potter gone and done now?" Isaac complained.

"I know Mrs. Norris is annoying," Justin agreed, "but he didn't have to kill her!"

"I doubt…Harry killed…the dumb cat," I gasped, trying desperately to keep up with their longer gaits. Terence and Isaac each grabbed one of my arms and pulled me along. We pounded up two flights of stairs, led by those who already knew where we were going, and stopped at a stretch of wall. The entire group fell silent. "Merlin," Isaac groaned, his eyes locked on something on the wall. Terence swore, looking at the same thing. Justin looked nauseated while Joshua stood agape.

"What is it?" I asked. I was too short to see over the crowd of taller students ahead of me. Terence shook his head.

"You don't want to see," Joshua promised in a low voice. He didn't turn away from whatever it was though. I placed my hands on his and Justin's shoulders, using them to help me jump, trying to see what everyone was looking at. In the second that I hung in the air, I saw tall letters scrawled across the wall in red.

"Help me," I commanded. With a sigh, Isaac bent his knees, allowing me to jump onto him piggy-back style. Over the last year, they had all had to boost me up from time to time and the act was familiar. I grinned at my success as he lifted me, but my smile fell away quickly when I finally read the words that held everyone in shock.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.  
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

"Is that blood?" Justin asked. None of us were brave enough to answer. I didn't know what the Chamber of Secrets was. I didn't know who the heir was. But the sight of the crimson letters scrawled unevenly across the stone wall was enough to strike terror in anyone's heart. The words were crooked as if whoever had written them had had to stretch to reach. Mrs. Norris hung from a nearby torch, dangling by her tail.

Everyone was terrified. Except, apparently, Malfoy. He had danced forward and turned to face us all. His face was bright. He was _happy_. "Enemies of the Heir, beware!" he crowed with delight written across his face. "You'll be next, Mudbloods." His eyes darted across the crowd and for just a moment, they met mine. His grin couldn't stretch any wider across his face, but the turn of his eyebrows deepened, turning the expression even more malicious.

The word 'mudblood' had never meant much to me. I knew most everyone else at this school considered it a slur, a swear even, against those who, like me, had two muggle parents, but I had never found much hurt in the word. Annoyance and irritation, but not offense. In fact, I was oddly proud of the label, so much so that I altered my uniform in order to look more Muggle. Suddenly though, I didn't feel so proud. I felt small. I felt cold. I felt vulnerable. I could feel people nearby looking at me and I didn't like it. I let myself drop from Isaac's back, feeling safer at the lower level, shielded by my taller friends and pulled my open robes closed, buttoning them mindlessly.

"What's going on here? What's going on?" Filch's voice was startling in the silence left after Malfoy's statement and the caretaker pushed his way through the huddled students. We parted for him easier than we would have in almost any other situation. The second he was close enough to see the wall, he froze, his hands like claws as reached up towards his own face. "My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" His head swung wildly side to side and it was obvious the exact second he found a culprit. Harry, Ron and Hermione were right next to the wall, separated from the rest of the students by a gap of space. When I had been lifted up to see, all three of them had been frozen, looking between us and the wall with the same horror we had. Based off the direction of his head, I was sure Filch was looking at the little trio of second years. His voice rose

 _"You!"_ Filch screamed. " _You!_ You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll—"

His threats were cut off by the headmaster's clear voice. I was shuffled several steps to the side suddenly when students parted once again to allow him to sweep through our mass. "Come with me. You, too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger." Apparently other teachers had arrived as well because, over the crowd of students, I heard Lockhart's voice.

"My office is nearest, Headmaster—just upstairs—please feel free—"

I heard a girl from somewhere nearby whisper to her friend, "He's so selfless." In any other situation, I would have rolled my eyes, but at the moment, I was too busy trying not to run away and bury myself under the covers of my bed.

"Thank you, Gilderoy," Dumbledore cut off Lockhart's rambling. The crowd parted again and this time, I strained up on my tiptoes and saw Lockhart, McGonagall and Snape all walk through, following Dumbledore, I supposed.

We were still silent as the remaining professors began herding us toward our respective common rooms. Most students obediently began moving. Through the shifting crowd, I saw Ginny shuffling after one of the other Gryffindor first years, her face as white and vacant as a ghost's. My friends and I all remained where we were though. I stood in shock and they stood around me, faces etched with concern. "Skylar!" I looked blankly towards the frantic voice that announced the arrival of Fred, George and Lee. "Are you alright?" I shook my head in confusion.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"Come on, Skylar, you need to rest." Looking at the Gryffindors distrustfully, Isaac was softly tugging on my elbow. I looked up at him, but was suddenly being pulled from the other side much more forcefully.

"No way in hell is she coming with you!" George swore as Lee tried to tuck me behind them.

"Let go of her!"

"Give her back!" I being pulled back and forth between the two sides and I felt nausea rise up in me again.

"Stop!" I pushed away from them all.

"Skylar," Fred said, "If there's someone is going to be attacking Muggleborns, it's got to be a Slytherin. It's not safe down in those dungeons with them!"

"You should come with us," Lee agreed.

"She's a Slytherin, she belongs in Slytherin House!" Joshua argued.

All three of the Gryffindors opened their mouths to argue again when Justin spoke up. "What do you think, Skylar?" Seven pair of eyes were on me and I looked back and forth between them all. Finally, I pulled at the little bit of courage the twins had taught me.

"I can't run away," I whispered. My voice still sounded weak so I cleared my throat. Flickwit was coming towards us, worry on his face and I quickly said, as confidently as I could, "It was probably just someone's idea of a Halloween prank."

It was obvious that no one believed me, but before the twins or Lee could argue, Flickwit was there admonishing us that we should all return to our common rooms. The walk down to the dungeons was silent with only our feet squelching as we descended the marble steps. Water had seeped into our socks and only after realizing that my feet were cold and starting to lose feeling, did I remember that the hallway where we had stood had been flooded. Absent mindedly, I thought that Myrtle must have been more upset than usual and had taken out her rage on the plumbing. To distract myself from the stares that met me in the common room, I let myself wonder who or what had offended Myrtle this time.

* * *

So, what do you think is gonna happen to Skylar this year? Should she have gone with the Gryffindors? Will she make it to the end of the year intact? Reviews would be lovely!


	9. Slytherin's Heir and New Subjects

The prefects had sent all of us of to bed as soon as we reached the common room and then had made rounds to all the dormitories, enforcing silence for the first time since I had been at Hogwarts. Tatiana couldn't gloat openly, but I caught her smirk directed towards me while we prepared for bed, and even after I pulled the curtains around my bed closed, I heard her snickers. I was grateful, for once, for Lucille who remained silent rather than joining her friend in the quiet mocking.

Slytherin common room might have been silent Halloween night, but the following morning was a different story entirely. The entire house had gathered rather than go up to breakfast and the large room was crowded. The chatter of several hundred people amounted to an intimidating roar and I regretted being one of the last to wake up. But that's what a restless night will do to you. When I stepped into the common room, a hush spread. It lasted only a moment before conversation returned, louder than before and I avoided the eyes I could feel following me and instead searched for my friends. After several minutes, I found them gathered around a small table against one wall, Justin flipping through a book. The expression on his face was the one he wore when tests were approaching and he was trying to shove a few last bits of information into his head. It was endearing, until I saw the dark expressions of the others.

"Hey," I muttered, slipping between Isaac and Joshua. There were whispers all around us, my name and blood status intermingled with the rest of the hushed garble, but I didn't want to face them. Instead, I kept my gaze locked on the book in Justin's hands. It was _Hogwarts, A History._ "What are you looking for?" Justin ignored me, flipping through pages so fast, I was sure there was no way he could really see what was on any of them. I grunted in annoyance.

"Are you alright?" Isaac asked, nudging me gently with his elbow.

Before I could answer, Joshua spoke from my other side. "She's alright enough to still be making a statement." His tone was a mixture of disapproval and admiration and I looked at him in confusion.

"What statement?"

"Your clothes?" he pointed, raising an eyebrow. I looked down and my jeans and sweater in surprise. I hadn't thought about what I was grabbing when I was getting dressed. I had been thinking about everyone up here and about the stares and insults and threats I would have to endure once again. Despite the fact that I had used it as a gauntlet of sorts in the past, I hadn't been trying to say anything with my wardrobe today.

"I didn't even mean to dress muggle," I whispered as I glanced around at all the on-lookers. It would look worse if I tried to change now.

Any bit of admiration that had been in Joshua's eyes dropped away, replaced instead by concern as he looked around too. "I suppose that's a statement all on its own," he muttered. The others huddled closer as if we could make a durable shield.

"I found it!" Justin announced suddenly, laying the heavy book down on the table and pointing to a section heading.

 _THE LEGEND OF THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS_

My fear ratcheted up another level and the words became unreadable as the letters started dancing a tango in front of my eyes. I closed my eyes. "Well, go on, Justin," Terence ordered. "I can't read upside down, now can I?" Justin glared at the sandy haired boy, but complied.

"' _As previously stated, the four founders disagreed over requirements for student enrollment at Hogwarts. These differences in opinion continued for several years and as time went on, Slytherin was the most outspoken and determined in his belief that only those of wizard lineage should be allowed into the schools. Eventually, due to his severe distrust of those modernly referred to as 'muggleborns' and after many heated arguments with the other three founders, Gryffindor in particular, Slytherin left Hogwarts permanently, the first of the founders to do so. Scholars agree on the facts up to this point._

"' _However, most scholars discount the legend of what happened next. There are rumors that before he left, Salazar Slytherin built a hidden chamber within the castle, unknown to the other founders. It is said that he left a creature there, one which only Slytherin's own heir would be able to control, that would purge the school of all muggleborn wizards. While the castle certainly holds many secrets, no chamber and no creature has ever been found by headmaster, staff, student or ministry. In fact, the legend likely would have been forgotten forever, left in the recesses of history were it not for the fact that something_ did _purge muggleborns from Hogwarts several times over the last millennium, the most recent incident occurring in the mid-twentieth century.'"_

It wasn't until Justin stopped reading and they all turned to look at me that I realized I had let out an involuntary squeak. Something had purged all muggleborns from the school _several times_. I tried to calm myself that it was just a story and that even if it was true that didn't mean that this was a legitimate threat. After all, _Hogwarts, A History_ was a required textbook. Everyone had one and someone easily could have decided to use the legend as a Halloween prank to stir up some panic. Some very cruel person.

"They killed Mrs. Norris," I said. That was too far for a Halloween prank, wasn't it? Even for the more messed up students, there was no one here at Hogwarts who was that sadistic, was there?

"No," Isaac shook his head. "They said, before you came up, that Mrs. Norris wasn't dead, just petrified." Relief immediately spread through my veins like a sugar rush, making me giddy and lightheaded. Petrification wasn't so bad. Even first and second years knew some basic freezing charms and those were easy release. The more complicated ones weren't so bad and I was sure that Dumbledore or Flickwit or Pomphrey would have fixed everything by now. I felt a smile spread over my face, my mind not registering the still tense expressions on my friends' faces.

"Well, that's alright then," I said. "Just petrification. They've fixed her by now, right? I'm sure they have. In fact, it's kind of too bad they couldn't have left her longer. She really is a menace." A hyper giggle breached my lips, tripping on its way out. "But she's back to herself now, right?" They looked at one another, each silently daring someone else to answer me.

"No," Isaac finally said. I fell from my brief high and crashed on something blunt and painful.

"No?" The word felt wrong in my mouth.

"No. It's…they're not sure what exactly caused it."

"Well, do they know how to fix it?" My voice was rising and people were looking at us with more curiosity than before, hushing so that they could listen.

"They have an idea. A potion that Madam Pomphrey can make, but…" Justin trailed off and glanced away before finishing. "But it'll take a while."

"How long is 'a while'?" I asked. "Like a month or two?" He winced.

"It's just, the potion calls for mature mandrake roots," he stuttered, "and mandrakes don't mature until…late spring." I froze.

"Do you really think someone is after the muggleborns then?" I asked quietly. There were two logical options in my mind. Option one: last night's attack on Mrs. Norris had been a Halloween prank to put the school on edge—much darker than anything the twins, Lee and I would have pulled, but a prank nonetheless. Option two: there really was someone sneaking around the castle under the guise of the Heir of Slytherin, planning to attack all the muggleborns. I disliked option two. It didn't cross my mind that anyone could be controlling a dark creature that was left behind a millennium before because that was just silly. I tried to keep my thinking logical, hoping that it would lower my heartrate. We all glanced around the common room because Fred was right; if there was someone trying to scare the muggleborns, they were most likely in this room.

"I don't think we'll know for sure until something else happens," Justin said and I forced myself not to grimace for the onlookers. I hated uncertainty like this.

"Let's get out of here," Terence suggested. "I'm hungry." We nodded and he led the way to the entrance, all of them standing in front of my like a guard. Everyone watched us, moving out of our way as we passed, but no one stopped us until we were nearly to the door.

"Running away, are you? Going to hide your little Mudblood somewhere safe?" Both Terence and Joshua reached for the wands, but neither pulled them out, yet.

"Excuse us, Malfoy," Isaac said smoothly. "We'd like to go get breakfast now, if you don't mind." I had to stand on my tiptoes to see over his and Joshua's shoulders. Draco Malfoy stood with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, his usual henchmen, blocking the exit. His smug expression was worse than ever and his smirk only grew as his eyes twitched from Isaac to me.

"So you are hiding?" he said to me. "Not that I blame you, of course. In fact, I reckon you've only got another day or two before you go the same way as the cat, or worse." Terence surged forward, but I grabbed the back of his robes, trying to hold him in place. I wouldn't have been successful if Isaac hadn't grabbed his best friend as well and furiously whispered something into his ear that I didn't catch.

"I'm not hiding," I informed Malfoy, though my position behind the boys contradicted my statement. Joshua must have realized this because he took a step closer to Justin, giving me room to step forward in line with them. "Now please excuse us. We're hungry and you're irritating." I pulled my wand from my pocket, not pointing it at him, but holding it meaningfully. The little git just smirked.

"Boys," he said to his cronies behind him, "let the Mudblood pass so she can go enjoy her final meal." The three moved just enough for us to get past. As the door closed behind us, I heard him shout after us, "Your friends won't be there to protect you when the Heir comes for your dirty blood!" The door slammed shut.

"Slimy little git," I muttered and the others nodded in stony silence.

We were the first Slytherins up to the Great Hall, but the rest of the school was there and louder than ever. We ignored their looks as we took our seats at the empty table. As we loaded up our plates, Terence started talking about the upcoming Slytherin vs. Gryffindor Quidditch game and the boys all threw themselves into the harmless subject.

It was almost guaranteed that we would win this time, even with Harry as Gryffindor Seeker. Terence's position on the team had been taken over by Malfoy because his father had made a large donation to the team, buying them all top of the line broomsticks. I hadn't seen them in action of course, but the twins had gone spying on them, reporting that the players were little more than green blurs when they flew. Slimy git though he may be, Malfoy was rich which gave our team an edge. Dang him.

Eventually, other Slytherins began to trickle up from the dungeons, but they all avoided us, sitting at the other end of the table. Only Justin's sisters Jaquelin and Josie were brave enough to smile at us before taking a seat with their twitching friends. Finally, we rose, leaving half-eaten plates of food on the table and using studying as an excuse to avoid all the gawking. At the door, we were intercepted by my favorite Gryffindors.

Ginny threw her arms around me, a show of affection she hadn't given me in weeks. "Are you okay?" she asked into my shoulder as I hugged her back, my Slytherin friends looking awkwardly on.

"I'm fine, Gin," I promised. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"The Heir of Slytherin is going to try to get you too, just like Mrs. Norris." I felt my own fear spike, but I tried to hide it. Going off the expressions of all seven boys, I was unsuccessful.

"Don't worry, Ginny, it was just someone's messed up idea of a Halloween prank, I'm sure." She shook her head, but pulled away from my shoulder.

"Please be careful," she begged and I nodded.

"Of course, silly, I always am." She scowled at my lie.

"No you're not. You sneak around the school at night and into Hogsmeade when you shouldn't and get into trouble all the time, just like they do," she pointed to her brothers. I blinked. What she said certainly wasn't untrue, but I didn't know how she knew all that.  
 _"Really?"_ Terence slid forward with a grin and put his arm around my shoulders as he grinned at Ginny. "Please, tell us more about the sneaking into Hogsmeade part." Ginny looked at him suspiciously.

"What did you tell her?" I asked the twins.

"Nothing!" They both held up their hands in surrender and I let the subject go for a minute.

"Don't tell him anything, Ginny," I said, sliding out from under Terence's arm. "If I promise to be careful, will you stop worrying about me? I'll be fine." She didn't look convinced, but when she saw Percy approaching she scowled, nodded and ran off.

"Why does she keep avoiding me?" Percy asked, pausing at the door and looking after his sister.

"Probably because you poured Pepper Up potion down her throat," Fred, George and I answered in unison. Percy looked affronted.

"I most certainly did not," he huffed. "I was simply looking after her health. Speaking of," his attention turned to me. "Are you alright, Skylar?"

"I'm fine," I said. I was already getting annoyed with the constant question. If anything was going to turn my fear into anger, it would be the constant repetition of that question. He nodded and walked off, calling over his shoulder that he would be writing Mum and informing her of the recent developments. I sighed, already bracing myself for her next worried letter.

"Come on," Lee grabbed my wrist and he, Fred and George began dragging me away, my Slytherins chasing after us.

"Hey, give her back!"

"You can't just take her!"

"You don't own her!" Only Joshua followed silently, scowling though he was.

"We need her for something," George shrugged. "Get lost," he added. I rolled my eyes.

"I'll see you later," I promised the frowning Slytherins and let myself be pulled away. We ended up working on our candy, something I was actually happy to do after I had scolded them for dragging me off. They didn't look nearly as repented as they should have, but they did promise not to drag me off any more. I would take what I could get. We had worked and planned away the whole morning and most of the afternoon using the notes I had gotten from Mr. Flume, when I collected my things and got ready to go.

"Hey, where are you going?" George demanded from the floor of his bedroom where he had been seeing how long he could keep both Lee and Fred levitated over their beds.

"I'm going back to Slytherin house," I said. "I've got some Transfiguration essays to grade before tomorrow." They were for the fifth years who always demanded in depth feedback so they could properly prepare for their OWLs. George dropped Fred and Lee onto their beds.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," he said.

"You should bring the essays back up here to work," Fred agreed.

"Why?" I scoffed. "You'll just mess with what I've written and I really don't need Lucian Bole cornering me in the common room again because you three changed my writing to say that he was a 'hopeless pouf with no talent who should drop out of Hogwarts immediately.'"

"It's not a lie," Lee muttered and I glared at him.

"I'll see you all tomorrow," I said, hopping through the obstacle course that was their room in order to get to the door. Before I could get there though, both Fred and George were in my way, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the now closed door.

"You really should stay away from the Slytherins for a while," Fred said.

"Just until we know what's going on with last night's incident," George added. I crossed my arms across my chest.

"No. Let me through."

"No," the twins said in unison. "It's not safe down there," George added.

"Oh, stop it," I snapped. "The thing with Mrs. Norris was just a prank, there's no reason to act like I'm going to end up strung up, too." I said the words, but the spike in the center of my chest twisted. My wand was already in my hand, though I didn't remember pulling it out, so when they both opened their mouths to argue more, I muttered a spell that sent them stumbling out of my way. "Goodnight," I threw over my shoulder grumpily. They were smart enough not to follow me.

Slowly the Legend of the Chamber of Secrets filtered through the school until everyone knew what the words were referencing. Some students laughed it off while others stuck together in tight groups and skittered through the corridors. The professors were on watch, though they assured us that we were all perfectly safe. The only person in the entire castle that didn't seem affected was Lockhart who breezed through the halls in his usual vain way.

With all the excitement about the Heir, I almost forgot about my encounter with Snape earlier Halloween evening. Almost. And the memory came back in full force as I made my way to the dungeon classroom on Monday. He had asked me to take those memories, but he wasn't exactly in his right frame of mind at the time. What if he was angry with me? He was always angry with me, but I knew from observing how he treated Harry and Longbottom that it could most definitely get worse. And I wanted to avoid worse.

It was worse than worse. He didn't yell at me or openly ridicule me. He didn't even glare or sneer at me. In fact, he didn't look at me once the entire class period. He didn't acknowledge my presence at all. It was terrifying. The suspense kept building as I waited for the other shoe to fall and stomp me into the cold, stone floor.

"Skylar," Justin leaned over to ask halfway through the lesson. "Are you alright? You look a little…"

"Of course I'm alright," I pasted a blatantly fake smile across my face. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you're usually really careful in potions," he said, "but you just added Nettle instead of Niffler's Fancy."

"So?" I asked distractedly. I rarely mixed up potions ingredients and this really was quite concerning, but Snape was walking past, pointedly looking away from my apparently screwed up potion. What is he waiting for? Do something already!  
"This is a potion for increasing one's attractiveness, and Nettles don't mix well with fairy wings—" My potion exploded. Snape hardly looked over, flicking his wand to vanish my potion before turning away quickly.

"He must be in a good mood today," Isaac mused from the table in front of us. "He didn't yell or anything." I hummed noncommittally. Snape gave me same treatment during class on Tuesday and Friday and as I stumbled down the corridor to his office Friday evening for my weekly detention, I wondered if he would turn cruel when there weren't any students around to witness his temper. My knock was shaky.

"Come in." The two little words were the first thing he had said to me since I had watched one of his darkest memories. I slunk into the office with my head down and a whispered "sir".

"Sit," he ordered. I looked up to see a chair in front of his desk. Not the painfully uncomfortable one he had relegated me to the previous year when I had started these detentions with him, but a normal, wooden chair. I looked at it suspiciously before taking my seat. I waited for him to say something, but he ignored me for several more minutes as he graded papers and I thought that he was just going to continue to disregard my existence as he had all day long. Just as I allowed myself to get comfortable though, he spoke. "Miss French," he said. "How much do you actually know about Legilimency?" His question surprised me. I had perhaps expected a lecture on why I should not use Legilimency, but not this.

"Uh, I know the basic theory of it and how to call it forward." Honestly, Legilimency was so advanced, I couldn't really wrap my mind around it. It was like being in the middle of a black cloud and knowing that you needed to get somewhere so you wandered around until you found something familiar then used that to shuffle along. The fact that I had been able to perform the spell so successfully on Snape had shocked me, both times I had done it.

"Then tell me, what is the basic theory?" He was sneering again and it irritated me. I felt my pride rear and before I could reign it in, it took control of my mouth, charging ahead without consulting with my mind.

"Legilimency is a spell that allows you to read another's mind through—"

"Wrong," he stopped me.

"What?" That was exactly what Legilimency did!

"You cannot read minds," he informed me haughtily. "There are no words carved inside your skull for me to read were I to crack your head open. Your memories are not a novel that I might deign to peruse. Now, what is Legilimency?"

"It's a spell," I began again, "that allows you to _see_ another person's mind using inflections in their memories." He wasn't satisfied.

"There you've just quoted Professor Song's thesis on the subject from 1981. Surely you can do better than that." I couldn't hold back the scowl I sent his way. "No?" his eyebrows rose mockingly and I bit back a retort that would only get me into more trouble than it was worth. He stood and walked lazily over to one of his many bookshelves, pulling three off the top shelf before returning and dropping them in front of me. "You will read all three of these by your next detention and you will not tell anyone," he said, "or I will change my mind and put you back on ingredient preservation duty, understood?" Change his mind about what? I nodded despite my confusion. "Good," he snapped. "Now get out."

It wasn't until I was back in the corridor that I read the titles of the three books he had given me: _Accessing the Mind_ by Elliot Thurge, _The Delicacies of Unraveling a Memory_ by Amaimon Partridge and _A Full and Complete Guide to the Mysteries of Legilimency_ by Dahl


	10. Can't Hide What Isn't There

_By the way, friends, I'm on tumblr now. If you want to see my fanfic postings and very related stuff, it's under MyStoryToTell. If you want to see my super nerdy, LOTS of fandoms side, check out chipofftheoldsoul. Feel free to message or follow me or whatever. Anywhoozal, back to reading, my dears._

I got dragged down to the Quidditch game the following morning. The only reason I agreed was because it was us against Gryffindor and I wanted to see if the twins could hit targets moving faster than they were used to. If not, it could make for some fun payback, someday. I had nothing against Quidditch per se, but it was just so dull. Now that Terence wasn't playing Seeker, I only had to go to the Gryffindors' games to keep an eye on the twins. Though if anyone heard me say such a traitorous thing I would be thrown in the Black Lake for sure.

My admiration of our team's speed wore off quickly and I turned away from the green blurs to the red players; _they_ weren't moving too fast to see who was doing what. But after a while that wasn't holding my interest either and my fingers were itching for a book. I had begun _A Full and Complete Guide to the Mysteries of Legilimency_ the previous evening and had read until my fingers couldn't hold the book steady and my eyes couldn't stay properly open. I had woken up that morning being smothered by "Chapter Three: The Separation Between Mind and Brain". Stuck watching a Quidditch game, I was trying to remember back exactly to what Dahl said about where 'brain' ended and 'mind' began. The psychology he used was heavy and required focus. I couldn't remember what he had said. Something about thoughts 'above', but also including survival was mind, but then what exactly did brain cover if—

Noise rose through the crowd and I looked up again, focusing back on the game. Had we won already?

No, something was wrong. I watched a Bludger headed straight for Flint veer off course to head toward Harry, George sprinting up to whack it away just seconds before it would have pulverized the second year. Even I, with my utter disinterest in Quidditch, knew that wasn't how Bludgers were supposed to act. They usually just followed a straight trajectory until being hit off a Beater's bat or hitting another obstacle, either player or pitch. But this Bludger just wanted to decapitate Harry who was doing all he could to keep his head. The volume in the stands rose.

Fred and George, in a valiant effort so keep Harry safe, joined him, one on each side of him and both continuously batting the persistent Bludger away. Their flight was crooked and I doubted any of the three were focusing on where they were flying as long as they weren't getting hit by the blasted Bludger. I didn't realize I was standing along with the rest of the crowd until I was screaming. "Get away from him, you idiots! You're going to get yourselves killed!" My voice couldn't possibly carry over the rest of the crowd, through the drizzle and all the way to the twins on the other side of the pitch, but Justin noticed and sent me a reassuring smile.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," he yelled over those cheering around us as Slytherins scored yet another goal. "They're the best Beaters in the school!" I didn't bother interrupting my stream of swearing to remind him that they were Gryffindors and Beaters' bats aside, if they thought the best way to protect Harry was to launch themselves from their brooms and at the Bludger itself, they might just do it. George was gesturing wildly at someone and after a moment, Madam Hooch's whistle squealed. I breathed in relief as the two redheads, still on either side of the brunet pelted towards the ground. They had to call the game for faulty equipment. But after only a few minutes and an obviously heated argument between the Gryffindor players, the whistle blew again and all fourteen players rose into the air once more.

"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled angrily though the audience around me seemed quite pleased. With the distraction of a rouge Bludger and two Gryffindor Beaters mostly out of the way, we were flattening them, seventy to zero. The Bludger returned to chase Harry and while I was worried about his safety—I'd have to be an absolute monster not to be—I was relieved to see that the twins weren't guarding him. They let him lead the Killer Bludger high above the stands until he was little more than a reddish speck through the rain that was growing harder and harder. I threw a shield spell over the five of us to keep the rain out of my eyes. Fred and George guarded the rest of their teammates from the regular Bludger and kept our Beaters from shooting it up to Harry. Even from here, I could see them both watching Harry worriedly and I knew that as soon as the Bludger got him and he fell off his broomstick, they would be there to catch him. With any luck the Bludger would be satisfied and not come after Harry when he was limp over the back of one of their brooms.

"What's Potter doing?" Terence shouted and my attention was once again yanked from the main game up to Harry who was frozen in midair. It was only for a second or two, but it cost him dearly and his Bludger got him in the side. He buckled, only just managing to stay on his broom and then oddly, but understandably enough, lunged at Malfoy. I had had similar urges over the past week through his never-ending supply of insults, but this really wasn't the time or place, not with all the professors watching. Malfoy dove out of the way and all of a sudden, Harry was diving towards the ground, a gold glint tight in his hand. He splashed into the mud and rolled off his broom as if unable to stand. Several red-robed people flocked around him and teachers ran forward, but my focus was still up in the air. The Bludger was still shooting towards Harry, flat on the ground though he may be.

Before it could reach him, George intercepted it with a wince that made me certain he was going to bruise badly. Fred reached over to guide his brother's broom to the ground while George fought to keep the fighting Bludger in place. I ignored the moaning Slytherins around me, calling to Justin that I would meet them in the common room later, and ran onto the pitch. I reached the twins where Fred was holding the equipment box open while George fought to get the Bludger locked in place next to its more benign brother.

"Immobulus," I shouted, pointing my wand at the Bludger. It went still and George heaved a sigh of relief, locking it in place before Fred slammed and locked the chest shut just as the Bludger began fighting again. "What the hell was that?" They raised their eyebrows at me.

"You swore," Fred commented dryly.

"That bloody Bludger almost killed you!" I reminded them. Did they not realize what blunt force trauma did to a human skull?

"Twice," George said. "We're fine, Skylar," he said. The wince he gave as he pushed himself off the ground said otherwise and I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You just took a Bludger to the chest," I reminded him.

"It's nothing," he said.

"Oh really?" I asked. I poked his ribs sharply and he hissed in obvious pain.

"It's nothing Madam Pomfrey can't solve in a jiffy," he waved off my worry and I glared at him harder. "Who cares?" he said, "we won!"

"You won," I tried to duck out from under the arm he had thrown over my shoulders, but Fred's arm joined his brother's and they held me in place. "You didn't even have top-of-the-line brooms," I complained.

"Nope," Fred grinned. "We have top-of-the-line players. Much more important."

"Speaking of," George said as we approached the clotted group surrounding Harry Potter just in time to see Lockhart poke his wand at the boy's broken arm and turn it into jelly. I felt nauseous and didn't blame the boy for passing out. I would too if my arm suddenly went boneless.

"Ugh, I think I'm going to go down to my common room," I said, pulling away. Fred was looking at Harry's arm with a mixture of disgust and scheming, but George grabbed my wrist.

"No, you've got to help us make a run to Hogsmeade," he said with a charming grin. Lee finally came down from the commentator's box and stood by Fred, watching Harry's arm flop around while Madam Hooch levitated him onto a stretcher and began pushing him away. "Flopping limbs," Fred mused before diving for the bag hung over my arm and digging through it until he found my notebook.

"We were just down there," I said, "last week. And we haven't had time to test the potion Flume gave us yet."

"So?" Lee asked. "We're not going to Honeydukes, we're going to Zonko's."

"Why?"

"Zonko sent us a note yesterday morning asking for our assistance with something," Fred shrugged before tucking my notebook back in my back. "You wouldn't want to let down such a kind sponsor of our work, would you? I scowled at him. I really did like Mr. Zonko and the products he had given me one week earlier were quite good. The prank-nail polish I had slipped into Tatiana's bag had left her inky finger prints on everything she touched, completely ruining her homework, hair and several sets of robes before she thought enough to remove the nail polish. Everyone stayed out of arm reach of her for ages, even after the polish had been removed, just in case. She had been glaring at me daggers all week, but she deserved it for giggling like she had Halloween night. And besides, she couldn't blame me at all; she had been the one to put the nail polish on. That product had worked well enough that I supposed I could justify a trip into Hogsmeade to thank its creator. I opened my mouth to agree, but before I could, Oliver Wood had rushed over.

"Come on," he said to the twins. "We've got to go see Harry. That was some really spectacular flying he did! Avoiding the Bludger like that and still getting the Snitch! We've got to celebrate—get him treats and cakes and whatever the hell else! That boy deserves a party." Wood didn't wait for the boys' approval, he hurried off to gather the girls and the twins gave me a sheepish expression.

"We'll go to Hogsmeade in a couple hours," I said. "Go congratulate Harry before Madam Pomfrey locks the doors on you all."

"Great!" Lee grinned.

"You're the best, love," Fred and George said together before adding, "Meet us in the library!" The library. I could do that.

The library was quiet, but busy, full of students locked inside thanks to the rain and making use of the mandatory imprisonment to study. Seeing no one I knew and wanting to avoid general conversation, I delved into the now familiar maze of bookshelves. I had once gotten so hopelessly lost in here that it had taken me the better part of an hour to get out. Now, I could walk most of the maze in my sleep. I found my seat back in a rarely visited corner, curled up into my armchair and pulled out _A Full and Complete Guide to Legilimency_. Maybe I would understand what Dahl was saying this time.

"Hello." The voice interrupted my reading and I looked up with irritation. This was one of my favorite corners because no one visited me here, ever. Only the boys knew to find me back here and they also knew that if I was back here, they had best proceed with caution because I didn't want to be interrupted. Before I thought about it, I raised my wand, pointing it towards the unfamiliar voice. "Well," she said dryly. "I was going to ask if you were feeling alright, but I suppose that answers that question." The girl stood with her hands up in surrender and a wry smile twitching. She had long, wavy hair quite a bit lighter than my own and light colored eyes. I recognized her, but it took me a moment to drag her name to the front of my mind.

"Twila Love," I greeted.

"Hello, Skylar French." She continued to approach me, heedless of my wand which was still pointed at her, and took a seat on the floor across from my armchair. She looked up at me expectantly and I felt like I was supposed to know why she was here, but I must have missed the memo. She had the same confidence about her she had had when I first met her months before when the little Hufflepuff had strutted in while the twins were botching an ill-planned prank in Snape's office. She had helped save us that day, but I refused to admit out loud. Her expression of self-confidence rubbed me wrong, like she had an ace up her sleeve at all times. I didn't like those people unless I knew they were playing for me.

"What do you want, Love?" I demanded. I had lowered my wand when she had taken a seat on the floor, but I kept it out, resting on the arm of my chair and still pointed in her direction. She didn't appear to care that I could hex her at a moment's notice. Dumb Hufflepuffs were too trusting. However, her expression did turn to one of concern, not for her own safety, but I guessed from her look of pity, for mine.

"I was worried about you," she said and I had to force my expression not to show my surprise or irritation. She and I were not friends. We had not spoken since that day in the hospital wing after the explosion. Why on earth would she care about me enough to worry? What right did she have?

"You don't need to worry about me," I informed her. "I don't want to be your charity case." Her eyebrows rose at my rudeness, but I refused to take the words back.

"I think you need a friend," she said. Damn Hufflepuff.

"I have friends." My clinical tone was gone and I was snapping now. She was the second person in the last two months to assume I was friendless. I might not have been the warmest person in the world, but I had plenty of friends to rely on, both in my own house and outside.

"Where are they now then?"

"They're my friends, not my bodyguards," I snapped. "They don't need to watch me study." Her eyes flicked down to the book in my hands, but if she caught the title or thought it strange, she didn't comment. "How did you find me anyways?"

"Intuition."

"Yeah, right." I wondered if she had something like the Marauders Map. We had never come across a second one, but I it was unlikely that there was only one in the whole world.

"Do you know who the Heir of Slytherin is?" she asked suddenly. I stared at her with numb shock.

"Excuse me?" I stammered. She repeated the question, enunciating each syllable with precision.

"Do you know who the Heir of Slytherin is?"

"There isn't one," I said automatically. "It was just some idiot pulling a prank." She stared at me with her shockingly wide eyes for a long moment before responding. It was like she was trying to be creepy, sitting in the shadows and staring at me like that. If only I could figure this Legilimency out already, I could get this irritating girl out of my business.

"Do you really think so?" she asked, bringing me back to the original subject. "Because something tells me things are going to get worse before they get better. You really should let them watch out for you. It's getting dangerous for Muggleborns around here." Then, Twila Love stood and left without another word from either of us. As soon as she was gone, I shoved her from my thoughts and turned back to my book. Maybe if I could figure out Legilimency, life would get less confusing.

We were sneaking up through our usual passageway that lead from a deserted building in Hogsmeade to a mirror on the fourth floor, all of us laden with a fair amount of Zonko's products, some bought full price, some discounted, some samples, but plenty of products that would last us a good long while. Zonko had been pleased with our feedback and promised to let us know as soon as the products were released to the general public before sending us off. It wasn't quite curfew yet so we stopped in at the Three Broomsticks for a quick butterbeer, Rosmerta giving us a wink before pretending that we weren't there. Only after enjoying our drinks did we finally head back to the castle. By the time, we snuck out from behind the fourth floor mirror, it was well past curfew and we would have to be very careful getting back to our respective common rooms.

"Skylar, why don't you take the Map," George offered. "You've got further to go." Fred and Lee both nodded their agreement and Fred passed the blank parchment over.

"Thanks," I said. "Be careful getting back." They grinned innocently.

"When aren't we careful?" Lee asked and I snorted.

"You really don't want me to answer that," I told them before adding, "I'll see you in the morning," I said turning on my heel. I opened up the Map as I walked, grateful to see that there were no professors or patrolling prefects in the area. The nearest one was Percy one floor down, but he was on the other side of the castle and would be easy enough to avoid. I scanned the rest of the castle quickly. The boys were nearly back to their common room already having taken another secret passage, but my eyes were snagged over to the second floor by another Weasley name.

The dot labeled _Ginny Weasley_ was moving evenly through the every corridor in an odd pattern. I thought about going to find her, but then I saw Peeve's dot coming quickly my way. The only way to avoid the nuisance's attention was to quickly backtrack then duck down a rarely used staircase that went all the way down to the dungeons. Every thirteenth step yelled when you stepped on it and it was all I could do not to fall as I hopped over each one. By the time I was safely back in my dormitory, I had forgotten about Ginny's late night wanderings.

I let myself sleep in the next morning. I shouldn't have. By the time, I was up, the castle was buzzing again, worse that it had been one week previously, even the suits of armor were shifting uneasily. "What's wrong with everyone?" I whispered to Isaac when I joined the four of them at breakfast the following morning. I was getting even more uneasy looks than I had just after Halloween, and many wouldn't meet my eyes.

"You don't go anywhere without one of us," Isaac said harshly and I looked at him in confusion, flinching back.

"What's wrong with you?" I demanded.

"He's right," Joshua said solemnly. "The castle has officially become a very unsafe place for Muggleborns." I was instantly reminded of Twila's words and I looked towards the Hufflepuff table only to find her already looking at me.

"What's happened?" I asked.

"Collin Creevey was petrified last night. The Heir of Slytherin is real." Justin said. His teeth were worrying his lip and we all looked down the table at the rest of the Slytherins, most of whom were looking right back at us, well, at _me._

Isaac, Joshua, Justin and Terence were true to their word. They never left my side unless I was in my dormitory, in class or with the Gryffindors. Even when I was with my other friends though, they were reluctant to leave me. I once caught Isaac, Joshua and the twins having a very heated argument while Terence and Justin tried to distract me.

"You are trying to control her!" Fred was growling.

"We're trying to protect her!" Isaac hissed back. "You should try it sometime rather than taking her on your mad schemes that are only going to get her into trouble. And one of these days it's not just going to be detention."

"We would never let her get hurt," George said and both Isaac and Joshua snorted derisively.

"I must have imagined all those visits to the Hospital Wing then," Joshua said dryly. Both twins lunged at the Slytherins and it was only because I had so much practice with it that I was able to throw a shield up and stop the brawl before it began. Why did those boys always have to jump into trouble?

"All of you stop it," I said. I was already tired of it. I was stressed with all of Slytherin House watching me, the twins always watching me—I knew they were with that blasted Map—the professors always watching me, and Twila Love always bloody watching me. I needed some peace and quiet, but it was obvious that I wasn't going to get it anytime soon. "Isaac, Joshua, I promise I'll be careful, alright?" They looked ready to disagree, so I strode past them quickly, dragging Fred and George away with me and not releasing them until we were around the corner.

"Sorry, Skylar," Fred said, "but you should have heard those Slytherins, talking like you couldn't do anything without their say-so."

"We know you know how to take care of yourself," George added, "but they seem to have forgotten at some point." I nodded. I had noticed the same behavior of course and I wasn't yet sure whether to be flattered or annoyed by it.

"Things are different in Slytherin," I reminded them. "It's not just that the Heir is probably down in the dungeons with me, it's that most of the house would feed me to that creature without a second thought. Some of them would do it to get rid of the Mudblood—"

"Don't call yourself that!" I ignored them and kept talking.

"—and some of them would do it to make sure the creature didn't turn on them instead. Down there, I really can't have enough people watching my back for me. It's just when I'm outside of the dungeons that it starts to get on my nerves again." Maybe it was the light in the dungeons, green from the lake outside the impervious windows, but everyone seemed more threatening in the common room than up in the main part of the castle.

"If they're ever too much—"

"—you'd tell us right?"

"Of course, I would." Probably. After I hexed the Slytherins myself. "Come on," I changed the subject. "Let's go start the potion."

"Right-o!" I laughed at Fred's enthusiastic response. It never ceased to amaze me how they could go from serious to grinning so fast. Before we got that far though, we ran across Ginny. "Hello, sister dear," Fred sang while George went mysteriously absent. Ginny threw her older brother a look of concern.

"What are you—"

"Blehgregagi!" George jumped out from behind a stone column. Well, a weird, fur-covered George jumped out from behind the stone column, screaming and making both Ginny and me shriek, though my shriek was admittedly much louder. I pulled out my wand to hex George, but Ginny beat me to it, though her hex was little more than a zapping light.

"Will you stop it?" she demanded, but the twins just laughed.

"We're just preparing you," Fred smiled winningly.

"Yeah, you can never be too ready," George agreed. Ginny raised her wand to fire again, but before she could, Percy strode up.

"Ginevra, no fighting in the hallways! Five points from Gryffindor." Ginny scowled at him, but said nothing, taking several subtle steps away from him until she stood on my other side.

"Excuse me," she muttered before hastily heading away, back the direction she had come from only minutes before.

"She can't still be mad about the Pepper Up potion, can she?" I asked, looking after the retreating girl. She was avoiding Percy like the plague lately.

"Ginny is very good at holding grudges," George shrugged. "Hey, Fred, a little help?" he added. Fred raised his wand and said the incantation, effectively removing all the fur from his brother's body.

"You two have to stop doing that!" Percy scowled. "You're giving her night terrors!"

"We're just showing her that there's really nothing to worry about. Besides, we're purebloods so it's not like the Heir, whoever he is, will come after us." George nodded his agreement with his twin's statement.

"Our whole family is full of blood-traitors so we hardly count as purebloods anymore," Percy reminded him. "And more importantly, no matter ourbloodstatus, _Skylar_ is still a Muggleborn." Fred and George looked at me as if having forgotten I was there.

"Ginny doesn't need to worry," George said, for once sounding serious. "We won't let anyone hurt Skylar."

"Enter." Snape's voice was as cold as ever and I clutched the books to my chest before pushing the door open. "Sit," he commanded, once again pointing me to the chair in front of his desk. I sat with the books on my lap. This time, he kept his attention on me. "So," he sneered. "How much did you read?"

"All of it," I said. I had finished _The Delicacies of Unraveling a Memory_ only fifteen minutes before, leaving me only enough time to through my robes on over my clothes and button the front up. Snape was more unforgiving for my non-wizard wardrobe that Professor McGonagall was.

"Really?" Snape regarded me closely and I wondered if he was using Legilimency to read my thoughts. I doubted it though. At least from what I read, it was not usually a subtle feeling when someone infiltrated your mind. Only the best could enter undetected and while Snape obviously knew a bit, I really didn't know how skilled he was. "Tell me, what is Dahl's theory on the mind?"

"That it exists outside the biological brain and is instead a part of the soul."

"What is the distinction between a memory and a thought?"

"A memory is a record of a past event from the seer's point of view while a thought is their opinion, made up of the effects of past memories."

"What is the most vital step in successfully preforming Legilimency?"

"Removing your own emotions so that you can clearly see the mind of your subjects" Each question was flung at me like a hex and I imagined a shield around me, taking the sharp challenges and molding them into the necessary answers before throwing them back at the dark professor staring at me. He did not praise me for answering all his questions correctly, but I didn't expect him to. He rarely gave praise except, occasionally, to his personal favorites. Teachers really shouldn't have favorites. I waited for him to speak.

"Miss French, from now on, your weekly detentions with me will be lessons on Legilimency and Occlumency. You will tell no one of your lessons. You will not use Legilimency other than when I have instructed you to, you will not snoop through the minds of your classmates or teachers and you will not share private information you may learn with anyone outside this room. You do not want to know what your punishment will be if you break these rules. Do you understand?" My heart was pumping fast and I had to be careful to control my facial expression, keeping it from one of triumph. I had hoped this was what he was planning when he had given me all these books, but I worried that he would change his mind.

"Yes, sir." I kept my voice calm, though I wanted to bounce and jump around with excitement. I was getting to learn Legilimency for real! No more stumbling through the hazy, black cloud of someone's mind, I would know what I was doing and it would work every time. Oh, there was so much I could do with a skill like this.

"Good. The headmaster is the only person outside you and I that will know of these lesson. He may discuss them with him and you may share what you have learned with him," his tone implied a drawn out 'obviously'. I nodded quickly, my calm façade not as strong as I would have liked. I didn't care who knew about these lessons as long as we can get on with them. "I gather you are ready to begin learning Legilimency?" His brows arched.

"Yes, sir!"

"Too bad. You will be beginning with Occlumency. What do you know about Occlumency?" I didn't let myself deflate over this announcement, though I was far more interested in Legilimency than I was in Occlumency.

"Legilimency allows you to see into another's mind while Occlumency is its counter, and allows the user to shield his thoughts from his attacker."

"Yes," he said, rising from his desk and once again going to the top shelf of his bookshelf. He pulled out a book and placed it in front of me: _Occlumency, The Mind's Shield_ by A.J. Bennit. "You will read through chapter six by next week's lesson," he said and I nodded. "For tonight, we will see if you have any natural ability with this spell as well."

Several weeks passed and as the castle turned icy, I still was having no luck with Occlumency, an issue that frustrated me to no end. Yes, it had taken me months to have any success with Legilimency, but I assumed that since I already knew how to preform that to some degree that Occlumency would come faster. It didn't.

"Clear your mind!" Snape ordered again, his wand raised at me. I screwed up my face in concentration as his spell hit me and I tried desperately not to let him see my memories, but they came swarming to the surface anyways, like piranhas to red meat.

My dad was deciding that I couldn't live with them anymore.

I was sitting alone on an orphanage cot.

I was falling off my broomstick for the umpteenth time while Charlie tried to hold in a frustrated sigh.

Quickly, I threw up a shield charm and felt Snape's mind leave mine. "You cannot keep falling back on that shield charm," he reminded me, none too gently. "If you cannot clear you mind, teaching you Legilimency will be a waste of my time. You cannot afford others to have the opportunity to infiltrate your thoughts if you hold precious information inside your mind." I wondered when I would ever get the kind of information in my head that needed such fervent protecting, but I didn't ask. He had already told me that I would one day see. The sentence sounded ominous.

"I don't get it!" I said in frustration. "I keep trying to put a shield around my mind, how do you keep breaking through."

"It is not about having a shield to protect your thoughts," he said again. He had said the phrase so many times that I had lost count at least two lessons ago and I could quote his next words along with him, "It is about having to thoughts to protect."

"I'd have to empty my entire life into the Pensieve for that to work!" I complained. I was a thinker, Terence said I thought too much for my own good, so I was used to always having random ideas and scraps of memories breezing through my mind. How was I supposed to function if all that wasn't there? It didn't make sense. Snape sighed in irritation and looked at the clock which had already struck nine.

"Retrieve your memories and go," he said, nodding me towards the bowl on his desk. I had realized quite quickly when we began that there were several memories that I would rather him not see, including, but not limited to many memories involving the twins and their pranks that could get all of us into some real trouble. When I had brought the issue up, he had just smirked and said that it was added incentive for me to learn quickly, but after a long debate, he had agreed that I could stash some memories into the Pensieve, a memory storage device that belonged to Dumbledore, during our lessons.

Any pranks he happened to find out about in my thoughts could still be counted against us, but seeing as he couldn't let anyone know how he knew about the pranks, it just meant that Gryffindor started rapidly losing points for no real reason. The only good thing was that he couldn't penalize us for what we were only planning to do, though he did try his best to thwart the twins who had no idea how Snape had suddenly gotten so good at guessing their plans.

"Honestly, Skylar," Fred moaned one night while we were brewing the potion for the candy, "it's like became a Diviner over night!"

"Really?" I blamed the heat rising in my cheeks on the heat of the cauldron we were hiding in their room.

"How else could the slimy git know that we were planning on blowing up Vaisely's growth potion in class today?" The Slimy Git in question had seen the memory of twins telling me of the plot.

"What's the next step?" I asked to change the subject.

"Let it stew for twenty seven hours," Lee said, checking my notes. "Then add the Puffapod Pus. I wrinkled my nose, glad it would be well past curfew and therefore impossible for me to be there for that step.

"We'll take care of that one," George said, thoughts in line with mine.

"Though I'm not looking forward to it," Fred added and I had to agree. Puffapod Pus was nasty stuff.

"In that case, I'm going back to my own dormitory. I've got some homework to finish." I let my feet guide me and my mind wander and soon found myself passing the Wall. Somehow, I never could avoid it. The Heir's message was still there, red as ever though Filch had tried to scrub the wall clean several times. The last word continued to jump out at me. _Beware_ , it said.

 _Beware, beware, beware beware bewarebewareBewareBEWARE._

I was still looking at the wall, when I heard a clatter of footsteps and three hushed voices arguing and I turned around the see Ron, Harry and Hermione stop in their tracks and look at me guiltily. "Where did you lot come from?" I asked surprised. I hadn't heard them come up the stairs.

"Nowhere," Ron said, though he glanced backwards. There was nothing behind him though except for the Out-of-Order toilet where Moaning Myrtle spent most of her time, dreary little ghost that she was. I filed the memory away for later, but outwardly let it go.

"Alright, well, goodnight," I said and started down the stairs to my own common room, trying to ignore the feeling of those crimson letters behind me. "Oh, wait, Ron?" I turned back. "Percy said you weren't coming home for Christmas. How come?"

"Er, just didn't feel like it, I guess. Too much trouble." How could going home for the holidays be too much trouble? I just nodded though and all three of them scurried away towards their common room. They were up to something, that much was obvious, but they were always up to something so I wasn't worried, yet.

One floor down, I ran into a far more unwelcome face than those of my foster brother and his friends. "Stop following me, Love," I scowled at the blond girl. I seemed to see her around every corner these days and she was always watching me with violet eyes that looked full to the brim with secrets. I didn't like others having secrets unless I knew them too and I wished, yet again, that we would get on with Legilimency so no one could keep secrets from me anymore.

"You shouldn't be walking alone this late," she said. "Let me walk you to your common room."

"No, thanks," I said irritably. "Besides, not that it's any of your business when I walk alone, but it's not even past curfew yet."

"It's late enough," she said airily.

"If you walk me to my common room, they'll be no one to walk you to yours," I reminded her. Sound logic that would hopefully keep her away for the night at least.

"I'm not a Muggleborn so I'm sure I'll be fine." I gritted my teeth.

"Leave me alone, Love," I hissed and stomped away.

When I was already several steps away, I thought I heard her say, "But then what kind of friend would I be." Refusing to dwell on that comment, I left her standing in the corridor.


	11. Author's Note-Transfering

Hey, y'all.

I have massively enjoyed writing _The Muggleborn Slytherin_ and its sequel _Hide and Seek with the Heir of Slytherin_ and seeing the feedback has been amazingly uplifting. However, I've been doing a rewrite, so far just of _The Muggleborn Slytherin_ and unfortunately, I won't be posting it here. Archive of Our Own has a format that I like better for long series which this will eventually be so I'm moving the updated draft there. I would love for you to read it, review, tell me how you like the changes, and of course follow the rest of the series as it comes if you can. _The Muggleborn Slytherin_ is listed under the same title, but my username on AO3 is ChipOfftheOldSoul if you try to look me up.

I'll still be on FFN, just not posting. Hope to hear from you,

-mystorytotell


	12. Note for It Has Begun

I began writing this character in her first year at Hogwarts in a fic titled _The Muggleborn Slytherin_ , but realized that all the bits I wanted to write took place during the war...so I skipped ahead a bit. I've left the first two stories, _The Muggleborn Slytherin_ and _Hide and Seek with the Heir of Slytherin_ as well as the collection of oneshots in "This Grimmauld Place" up for now, in case I have the urge to go back and keep writing or do character development or whatever, but I'll be focusing on my wartime fic, title _It Has Begun_.

Summary of _It Has Begun_ : The Dark Lord is gaining power, Albus Dumbledore is dead, the Order of the Phoenix is scrambling and the Boy Who Lived is nowhere to be found. But there is still a war to fight.

If you want to look for _It Has Begun_ on AO3, it is also posted there (I like AO3's format a bit better).


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